Noble case reveals tragic past

The Kelly Noble trial which lasted for just over two and a half weeks at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin revealed a story of two very troubled young women who’s path’s crossed on a summer’s evening in June, producing fatal consequences.

Kelly Noble had been spending that evening with her friend and occasional child minder Niamh Cullen and was braiding her hair as a birthday present, when she decided to go down to her local shop to get some groceries.

Emma McLoughlin had been drinking in the sunshine that afternoon with her younger sister Shona after getting the bus down to Laytown from Drogheda.

Their friend Ann Duffy was with them and described how they had asked others to buy them the drinks, which they drank at the Seafields and the local beach.

She said she was the most drunk and had had “a nagin of vodka and a few bottles of WKD”.

The two sisters had been drinking cans of Budweiser and Bulmers and maybe a little bit of vodka also.

Shona said the alcohol had made her sister “happy” and denied she was frequently a violent person when she had drink taken.

She said they called into Pat’s supermarket that evening to allow her friend to get crisps and a drink when they came across Kelly Noble who was getting her shopping and had her little boy in a buggy.

She said Ms Noble and her sister began rowing. She said: “They were rowing for a while and Emma was saying why did you hit me in the train station. Then Emma hit Kelly and Kelly pushed her.”

Back at Kelly Noble’s house Niamh Cullen, who described herself as a friend of the accused and the deceased, said she received a phone call to the land line. It was a bad line but she heard Kelly Noble say that Emma McLoughlin had punched her in the face and that there were a gang of girls waiting outside the shop who were going to beat her up.

Ms Cullen said: “She asked me to bring a knife down to Pat’s shop and to come down and collect the children.”

She said: “I grabbed a knife, put it into a small school bag and hurried down to the shop.” Inside she met Ms Noble who was holding a tissue up to her bleeding face and gave her the school bag. Ms Cullen said the two of them were trying to leave the shop when Emma McLoughlin approached.

She said: “She had Kelly, not pinned, but was in front of her stopping her from moving away from the window…Kelly and Emma started to shout at each other and the children started to cry.”

During the confrontation said she tried to get the children to look away as their mother stabbed Emma McLoughlin:

“I was trying to get the children to calm down and not be looking at the two women.”

She heard a thud and saw Emma McLoughlin lying on the ground.

She told the defence that she did not think Ms Noble was going to use the knife and thought she would only have brandished it to make people stand back.

“Otherwise I would never have brought it,” she said.

She agreed Emma McLoughlin was a fearless person who would not have listened to reason.

Sergeant Seamus Burke told the trial he had had a number of dealings with Emma McLoughlin over the years, most of which were dealt with through the juvenile liaison scheme.

One of the incidents he described happened on April 20th 2004 when her father Thomas McLoughlin reported being attacked with a jemmy bar by his daughter’s boyfriend Daniel Christodoulides and described having to flee for his life on a bicycle.

Emma McLoughlin had also been charged with the possession of a jemmy bar and had been ordered to undergo an anger management course. Sgt Burke agreed that a number of charges had been adjourned to July 7th 2006, the month after her death.

However in his evidence to the court Mr McLoughlin denied his daughter was troubled but agreed she had been diagnosed with ADHD.

He said he was extremely proud of her and of all his children. He said: “Nothing, and I mean nothing in this world could ever justify taking a life.”

He said he did not like his daughter’s partner who “was no help to her.” However he said the man was not there to defend himself, and he was not prepared to discuss it further.

Gardaí investigating Emma McLoughlin’s death also quickly became aware of Kelly Noble’s troubled past.

Detective Garda Michael Callaghan said she had told him how her mother and father were both heroin addicts.

The environment she grew up in was one in which acts of extreme violence perpetrated by her father, on her mother were not uncommon.

Her father Derek Benson died when she was just 14. Her mother Jacqui was jailed for life in 2004 for her part in his murder and Kelly Noble was taken into care.

Jacqui Noble gave evidence that her former partner had beat her "again and again and again" over a 14-year-period.

He fractured her ribs, busted her eyes, repeatedly bashed her, sometimes in front of the neighbours.

She said he had raped her on numerous occasions.

Derek Benson was hacked to death by Jacqui Noble’s co-accused Paul Hopkins who used a Chinese-type sword.

It took state pathologist, Dr Marie Cassidy, 50 minutes to list the 25 stab wounds and 60 cutting or incised wounds inflicted on him.