Mahon accused daughter: I was 'brainwashed'

The youngest daughter of the Sligo man accused of murdering 14-year-old Melissa Mahon has told a jury that she gave a number of different accounts of the killing because she was brainwashed by the accused and was trying to protect him.

The 16 year-old, who cannot be named, was cross examined by defence counsel, Brendan Grehan SC, via video link on the 11th day of the Central Criminal Court trial.

She said that she was frightened for her father and that he had threatened to kill himself.

Melissa Mahon went missing from the care of the Health Service Executive in Sligo on September 14, 2006. Her remains were discovered along the shore of Lough Gill in February 2008 after another daughter of the accused approached gardaí with information.

Ronald McManus (aged 44), also known as Ronnie Dunbar, of Rathbraughan Park, Sligo, has pleaded not guilty to murdering the schoolgirl in September 2006. He also denies threatening to kill his daughter, Samantha Conroy.

Mr Grehan suggested to the witness that her evidence was inconsistent with that earlier given by Samantha. She variously replied that they were young, frightened, in shock, that it was a long time ago and that people perceived matters differently.

She said: “You’d be more worried if they were exactly the same”.

Samantha Conroy earlier told the court that she saw her father on a bed with Melissa. She said they were lying on their sides and he had his arm around her neck. Samantha alleges that the accused got up when she entered the room and that she tried to resuscitate Melissa who was struggling to breathe.

The witness instead alleged that their father took a tie from his bedside locker and wrapped it around Melissa’s neck. She said her father then asked her and Samantha to each hold an end of the tie while he left the room.

Mr Grehan asked her why she did not let go and she said she was frightened. She said she held the tie for a number of minutes and then went downstairs to turn the cooker off as she had earlier been baking a cake. Asked if she was serious about that she replied: “Very serious”.

The witness said she was too frightened to ask what was going on and said that when the accused came back into the room he placed a pillow over Melissa’s face.

Asked if she thought what was happening was fake she said she thought it was a joke. Mr Grehan asked if she thought it was a joke, why was she terrified? She said her father was a volatile man.

She agreed that she had given a number of accounts about how Melissa had died to various people and to gardaí on dates between February 2008 and July 2008.

She said that she told the truth in her last statement to gardaí in July 2008 and had earlier been lying to protect her father.

She accepted that before July she had blamed Samantha for the killing, saying that they had been camping and Samantha had hit and strangled Melissa in a row over drugs.

In another version, the 16-year-old said that Samantha had told her that she had killed Melissa in the woods and had then threatened the witness with a knife in her bedroom in the middle of the night.

The witness had also given an account in which Melissa was in her home and had become aggressive causing the witness, the accused and Samantha to each attack her.

She said: “I was frightened back then and I lied... he was telling me these things and telling me to tell the guards. I was very scared for me and for my Dad. I didn’t want to get him into trouble”.

“I’m disgusted with myself for trying to protect him, it was all false” she said. She also alleged that the accused had threatened to commit suicide by hanging or by a syringe with caustic soda. She said this made her very upset.

She told Mr Grehan that if someone repeats something over and over you begin to believe it. “He started believing himself”, she said.

The witness agreed that she had seen newspaper reports in The Sunday World in February 2008 in relation to what Samantha said happened to Melissa. She also accepted that she spoke to a radio presenter on Ocean FM in Sligo and told him that Samantha had killed Melissa during a camping trip.

A number of text messages and phone calls to relatives and friends were put to her in which she had stated that her sister was to blame. She accepted that she had made the calls and written the messages but said that she was confused and brainwashed at the time.

She also agreed that she had sent a text message to her father’s sister, Judy Dunbar, which said, “I’ll be taking the blame for it all. Dad’s not going down, I am. He needs to live the rest of his life”.

The trial continues before Mr Justice Barry White and a jury of six men and six women. It is expected to continue for another two to three weeks.