Tag: Four Courts (Page 5 of 10)

In a packed courtroom it can be difficult to hear the subtleties of a witness’s account of proceedings but even with the constant rustling and coughing in Court 16 today the  story being told by Ronnie Dunbar’s youngest daughter were clear in all it’s confusing details.

On her second day giving evidence by video link the 17-year-old was adamant that both she and her older sister Samantha had seen their father kill Sligo teenager Melissa Mahon by strangling her.  Meticulously, her father’s defence counsel, Brendan Grehan SC, put before her all the conflicting details of her, and Samantha’s accounts of those events, pointing out to her that they didn’t just differ on minor details, there were large discrepancies as well.

The girl was defiant as Mr Grehan pointed out to her that she and Samantha couldn’t both be right when they gave different accounts of events that both said both were present for.  Again and again she would reply “that’s her statement not mine” and point out that “people perceive things differently”.  Then why, Mr Grehan asked, had Samantha said in her evidence that she did not hold one end of a tie that was around Melissa’s neck while her sister held the other end?  Samantha had also denied watching her father smother Melissa with a cushion.  Maybe she was out of the room, the girl insisted.  It happened.

We had been familiar with the fact that the girl had given gardai several conflicting accounts of the events of that day before giving a statement that was a good match for the account Samantha gave in July last year, after their father had been arrested and charged.  During her evidence, Samantha had dismissed the earlier accounts and reacted with blank incomprehension at some of the elements of the matching accounts where her and her sisters accounts differed.

Under cross examination today the girl was faced with each of these accounts which she dismissed in turn.  She had already said that she had lied, she explained.  She looked grave as she told Mr Grehan that she was “disgusted” with herself for lying but she had been afraid of her father and brainwashed by him, an accusation also made by her older sister in her evidence last week.  The girl said that her father had been in contact with her by phone after her sister had gone to the gardai and had threatened suicide if she had backed up her sister’s story.  She said he had told her he would hang himself and that her aunt, his sister, had told her he was threatening to kill himself “with a syringe and caustic soda”.

She said that Ronnie Dunbar had convinced himself of his innocence and had tried to convince her.  Many of the details she gave in her earlier false statements, she said, were fed to her by her father.  She said he would tell her a version of events as if it was true and in her confused and frightened state she had chosen to believe him even if she had known what he said to be wrong.

She agreed that she had told this false version of events to various people and had even spoken to a local radio presenter at Ocean FM, telling him that Samantha had killed Melissa in a row over drugs.  She told Mr Grehan that all this had been lies and that she had only told the truth in two statements once her father was safely in jail on remand.  One in July last year, the other virtually on the steps of the court, days after the trial had begun.

She agreed that she had read newspaper reports in the News of the World that gave Samantha’s account of Melissa’s death but said that this had not influenced her.  Reiterating her anti newspaer stance from the day before she said that since papers “mixed things up” and changed things she hadn’t given the account much thought.

We heard a section of the radio interview just after lunch.  The girl sounded young but spoke quickly and definitely in the few seconds we heard.  It was surprising to hear that she had been approached for an interview.  She couldn’t have been more than 14 or so at the time, rather young to become a target of the press even if she had given the interview willingly.  She insisted that she had not approached the radio station and there was much discussion as we headed off for lunch about the ethics of interviewing one so young about an ongoing criminal investigation.

As this week goes on the press aren’t coming out particularly well.

Ronnie Dunbar’s youngest daughter sat with her head tilted to one side as her older sister had done for most of the morning.  She answered the defence counsel’s questions shortly but politely in the soft english accent she shared with her two older sisters.  She was firm in her version of events and quick with her answers but the questioning was beginning to heat up.

Last week we heard the first suggestion that the youngest Dunbar daughter had previously previously given several conflicting accounts of the events of the September evening when she and her older sister Samantha say they saw Sligo teenager Melissa Mahon die at the hands of their father.  The same evening, both girls claim they helped him to dispose of the body at an isolated spot on the banks of the River Bonet in Sligo.

Their father, Ronnie Dunbar, also known as Ronald McManus, denies murdering 14-year-old Melissa or having anything to do with her death and the disposal of her body.  He also denies threatening to kill Samantha.

The girl agreed that she had given her most recent statement to gardai only a couple of weeks ago after the trial had started.  It was this account that she gave in her primary evidence, telling how she had come upstairs to find her father lying on top of Melissa.  She asked what he was doing, he replied “keeping her sweet”, to which Melissa, lying beneath him, giggled.

The girl told prosecuting counsel Isobel Kennedy that when her older sister Samantha came back from her Youthreach scheme about ten minutes later, she brought her upstairs to show her what was going on.  She said that her father and Melissa had changed position and were now lying side by side, her father lying behind Melissa with his forearm across her throat.  The girl said that her father told her and her sister to get out of the room.  He said he had had to kill Melissa because she had threatened to report him to gardai and had tried to kill him on a previous occasion.

She said he then got a tie out of the bedside cabinet and put it around Melissa’s neck then told her and her sister to hold an end each while he went to the bathroom.  When he came back, she said, he pressed a pillow over Melissa’s face before stuffing her head first into a sleeping bag he had sent Samantha downstairs to fetch.

The girl said that when they arrived at the River Bonet to dump the body her father opened up the sleeping bag to remove the tie.  She said Melissa was purple all down one side.  Her father zipped back up the sleeping bag and tied the tie around the top, where Melissa’s feet where.  They then threw the sleeping bag and it’s contents into the River.

Months later, she told Ms Kennedy, she and her father made a late night visit to the River Bonet.  Her father had brought a blow up dingy and took her up and down the river for around an hour while he used a flashlight to search the banks, looking to see if the body had “risen”.  The girl estimated this nocturnal trip had taken place at around 3 am.

She agreed with defence counsel Brendan Grehan that she had given various different accounts but she stuck by the account she gave today.  She said that any differences between her account and Samantha’s were simply because they had perceived things differently even though Mr Grehan told her that they couldn’t both be right.

She agreed that she had phoned her aunt, the accused’s sister, while her sister was giving evidence but said that she had not said Samantha was telling a pack of lies.  She denied discussing the events with her sister but said she had been following the trial in the media.  That didn’t count though.  She suddenly sounded far older than her years when she told Mr Grehan  “As you know, newspapers add things in, take things out, mess them up.”

There was laughter in the courtroom as everyone looked towards the press.  It wasn’t the first time a broadside had been aimed in our direction and it certainly won’t be the last but all accounts of events as detailed as a court case must be edited in some way.  There’s frequently a large dose of cynicism aimed at press reports but it’s unusual to find it in one so young.

I wonder will she be reading accounts of her performance tomorrow morning before she takes the stand again tomorrow.  What’ll she think of our accounts of her own performance in the stand?

Samantha Conroy will have a stressful bank holiday weekend.  The 18-year-old daughter of Ronald McManus, the man accused of murdering Sligo teenager Melissa Mahon has been giving evidence for the past two days.  She will have to resume her cross examination on Tuesday.

It’s hardly surprising she’s being interrogated for so long.  The story she tells is very damning.  She says that she saw the aftermath of Melissa’s death and helped her father dispose of the body.  She is the name in the second charge, that her father threatened to kill her.  In these circumstances her evidence is crucial.

For the later part of this week the entire court has shifted to a different court room.  The Four Courts is a historic building and sometimes rather behind the times where technology is concerned.  One of my colleagues asked me during the week if we had access to wifi anywhere in the courts complex…I couldn’t help laughing.  Wifi is a precious commodoty in a complex where, if evidence must be heard via video link, the entire court must decamp and shift to the one courtroom set up for this eventuality.

Since video link evidence is a possible requirement in any trial with young witnesses this shifting of courts happens quite regularly.  Unfortunately, the courtroom that can take the video links is quite a bit smaller than the main courtrooms that open off the Round Hall.  Murder trials tend to require a lot of personnel and the witness list will frequently be long and involved.  When you factor in the fact that murder trials are the ones that tend to get the most media attention and therefore the largest press pack, you begin to get a very crowded courtroom.

Matters got so cramped on Thursday that the accused had to move into the witness box so that he could see his daughter’s evidence and there he has sat, on a level with the jury box on the opposite side of the room, taking reams of notes and watching her face intently on the two large screens hanging over the judges bench.

Samantha gave her principal evidence on Thursday so the following day it was the turn of defence counsel Brendan Greahan to cross examine.  On Thursday Samantha had answered every question politly, speaking in a soft English accent.  She had taken great care to include a wealth of detail, taking time to answer each question.

Once the cross examination started and the questions became less gentle and more probing her demeanour changed.  Her head cocked on one side, she answered many questions cheekily but Mr Greahan plowed on needling away at each detail of her account.  Thier swords first crossed as he started his cross examination detailing each statement she had given to the gardai.

“You have had all your statements?  Did you read them?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s very stressful to read over evidence.  Do you not think I’ve suffered enough?”

Mr Greahan led her through each detail of her account, stopping to test each piece.  Why did she claim to have switched rooms in the middle of the night the night before she said Melissa was killed.  Because she preferred the smaller bedroom, she answered, Melissa hadn’t come to bed in her room so she moved.  It had been dark when she moved she said so she hadn’t noticed anyone sleeping in the room’s second bed.

Mr Greahan pushed further.  She had said that her father took her and her sister to watch him play football as usual after they had disposed of the body.  What time was this?  Half 8.  Was she sure?  Absolutely.  But another witness would say football took place from 7 till 8.  It was half 8.

And again, what way was Melissa lying when Samantha saw her on the bed, allegedly after her father had strangled her.  She was lying on one arm with the other along her side.  And what way was her father lying, where was his arm.

Samantha stuck to her story, her face often furrowed with concentration.  She answered every question put to her and the exchanges came thick and fast.  Why had she and her sister done what her father told them in disposing of the body.  Why hadn’t they told anyone for almost 18 months?

Samantha replied again and again with the same words, a descriptive phrase learnt perhaps in counselling.  Her father was “a very controlling man”. Eventually Mr Greahan showed exasperation hearing the same phrase again and again.  You keep saying that.  And I’ll keep saying saying it.  It’s the truth.

“You don’t know my father.  I do.  I had been living with my father for fifteen years of my life.  You have just been reading his statements.”

She agreed that she had stolen regularly in the past, robbing makeup and sweets from Tesco and chemist shops around town.  She insisted though that she had never taken anything more than makeup from the chemists although she did admit to taking cocaine once.

But it was when Mr Greahan began to read large chunks of her younger sister’s statements giving several completely different accounts of Melissa’s death that Samantha looked her most incredulous.  She screwed up her face, her head tilting even further to one side as it was suggested to her that she had hit Melissa over the head with a frying pan, or threatened her little sister with a ktichen knife after admitting to hitting Melissa with a piece of wood.

I hope Samantha gets some rest over the weekend.  It can’t be easy going through a cross examination and hers is due to continue on Tuesday.  The battle lines will be redrawn as the defence and the prosecution try to get to the bottom of what happened to Melissa Mahon for the jury.

Samantha Conroy’s voice shook slightly as she described trying to resuscitate her best friend.  Giving evidence via video link, the 18-year-old told how she had come home one day in mid September 2006 to find her younger sister crying in the downstairs living room, smoking a cigarette.

Samantha told the court that her sister had told her not to go upstairs, so she did.  She said she ran upstairs and into her father’s room where she saw him lying on the bed with Melissa Mahon.

Samantha’s father, Ronald McManus, otherwise known as Ronnie Dunbar, denies murdering 14-year-old Melissa Mahon on an unknown date in September 2006 somewhere in Sligo town.  He also denies threatening to kill Samantha.

Court 16, the only place in the Four Courts where video link evidence can be heard, was packed with witnesses and gardai.  As his daughter began to give her evidence McManus craned forward to try to see past the crowds standing at the back of the court to the two large screens suspended above the judges bench.  Eventually he moved to the witness box where he sat listening intently and taking occasional notes.

Samantha told the court that Melissa was lying, on her side facing away from the door with her father lying behind her, facing into Melissa.  He had his arm around her neck.  Samantha told the court “I thought they were getting up to sexual activities”. The room was in darkness with the curtains closed so she turned on the bedroom light.

As she did so, Samantha says, her father jumped up from the bed and ran out of the room.  As he moved Melissa fell onto her back.  Samantha told the court that Melissa’s face was purple, her lips blue and her eyes closed.  She said she ran over to try to resuscitate her friend, sitting on her legs and pressing on her chest.  Melissa was trying to breath.  Samantha told the court that she could hear a high pitched noise coming from Melissa’s mouth but her attempts at resuscitation were unsuccessful.  “Melissa wasn’t breathing any more.”

Samantha told the court her sister had come into the room and was standing there crying.  She herself was screaming Melissa’s name.  Then their father came back in.  Samantha told the court that she and her sister watched while her father put Melissa head first  into the sleeping bag he had brought back into the room and tied a tie around the end where her feet were.

She said that her father picked the sleeping bag up roughly and took it down stairs.  Then he backed his car up to the front door and opened the boot.  But he had difficulties getting the body into the boot and Samantha said she heard a snapping sound as Melissa’s neck broke.

Samantha told the court her father told her and her sister to get into the car.  They didn’t argue and got in.  Their father drove them to a place they had gone many times, a wooded area beside the River Bonet.  Samantha said that her father had been considering buying a barge that had been moored there with the intention of living on it.  She told the court he called the spot his “secret wood” because it was in the middle of nowhere.

She said her father dragged the sleeping bag into the woods, holding it by Melissa’s legs, and dragged it down the bumpy path to the river’s edge.  She and her sister followed behind.  Her dad, she said was “very controlling” and she and her sister were afraid of him.

When they reached the river, Samantha told the court, her father told them to grab the sleeping bag and help him to get it into the water.  She said she waded into the water with him and on the count of three they swung the sleeping bag and threw it into the river.  An air bubble was trapped in one end and the bag stayed near the surface before eventually sinking to the bottom of the river.

Samantha said that on the way back to the car her father had said over and over again that they were now accessories and that he would see they met the same end if they went to the gardai.  He kept telling them this all the way home.  Once home, a friend of his arrived to take him to football practice in Collooney and the three left the house again.

Samantha said she and her sister had never spoken about what happened that evening again and that the first time she spoke about Melissa’s death was when she told her older sister Shirley in January 2008.

She said when she first met Melissa at school she didn’t like her because she was the girl who was always getting her little sister in trouble but when Samantha started “dossing with them” she got to like her.  She agreed that her younger sister had been pushed out when her friendship with Melissa had deepened.

She told the court that Melissa had told her that her father was sexually abusing her and had put her head through a door.  Melissa also told her that she had fallen in love with Samantha’s father and was having a sexual relationship with him.  Samantha said that her father had overheard this conversation and had admitted to having a sexual relationship with Melissa.

She said he had cut Melissa’s fringe straight across so that it looked like Cleopatra.  The trial previously heard from McManus’s ex girlfriend Angelique Sheridan, also known as Dupois, who told the court that Melissa had told her she believed she was the reincarnation of Cleopatra and that Ronnie was her king.

Samantha will continue her evidence tomorrow…

Shirley Conroy didn’t look at her father as she stepped up to take the stand but he watched her intently.  She was about to start giving evidence against him in his trial for the murder of Sligo teenager Melissa Mahon.

Ronald McManus, or Dunbar as most of the witnesses know him, denies the murder of the 14-year-old in September 2006.  He also denies threatening another of his daughters, Samantha.

Shirley spoke quickly as she described her life with her father, speaking in a soft English accent.  She told the court how her father had looked after her and her two younger sisters after their mother had left them when Shirley was five.  They had been living in Essex then.  When she was twelve they moved to Kent.  Things changed after her father had had a run in with a local drug dealer.  Someone had called to the house and shot her and her father.  After McManus gave evidence against the shooter in court, he and his daughters were taken into a witness protection programme.  They changed their name to McManus and moved to Scotland.

In July 2005, the family moved back to their father’s home town of Sligo.  After staying initially with an aunt they moved into a house in the Rathbraughan Estate.  All three girls had been attending the Mercy Convent school in Sligo town and it was here they met Melissa Mahon.  Shirley explained that it had been her two younger sisters who had hung around with Melissa, whose family had also moved over from the UK in 2005.  She agreed that Melissa and her sisters had got into trouble together at school and had ended up being either suspended or expelled.

She told the court that she had moved out of the family home in January 2006 and had soon after met her boyfriend, Danny Lynnot, also known as Danny Burren.  She had become pregnant a couple of months later.  Shirly said she was a daily visitor to her father’s house and had often arrived to find Melissa there, sometimes in the company of her older sister Leanna.  In August 2006, when Melissa had gone missing from home, Shirley said the teenager had been hiding in her fathers house.  She said she hadn’t approved and had told her father he would get into trouble if the authorities found out he was hiding Melissa.

She said that she remembered a conversation with her father’s then girlfriend, Angelique Sheridan, where the subject of her father possibly going to jail if the matter came out came up.  But she told defence counsel Brendan Greahan that she had no memory of any conversation about her father having a plan to kill Melissa and she didn’t think it was something she was likely to forget.

Shirley told the court that her father and sisters  had moved into the house beside the the original family home in Rathbraughan Park in September 2006.  She said that her father had kept the key to the back door of the old house and when Melissa was hiding with the Dunbar family when she had run away, he would take her over the back wall to the next door house and let her in by the back door if anyone came round.  She said she couldn’t remember the last time she saw Melissa but thought it was in early September 2006.

Shirley said that 18 months after Melissa’s disappearance her sister Samantha had told her some alarming news.  Samantha had been staying in the house Shirley was living in with her boyfriend and their baby after she had been kicked out by her father.  On January 31st, their mother Lisa rang.  She and Samantha had a massive row and, when Shirley took the phone to try and defend her little sister, Samantha started shouting “I’ll tell you why I’m this way.”

Shirley said she hung up the phone and sat down on the sofa with her sister.  She told Mr Greahan that she had felt it might be something to do with Melissa’s disappearance.   It was then that Samantha told her their father had strangled Melissa and that he had taken his two younger daughters with him when he went to dump the body in the River Bonet.  She agreed that her sister had been terrified that she would go to jail herself and had begged for Shirley not to tell anyone about her claims.

Shirley agreed that her younger sister had initially told a different story, which changed repeatedly.  The girl, who can’t be named for legal reasons, had claimed that Samantha had killed Melissa on a camping trip when she was high on drugs or in another scenario, that Melissa had attacked both sisters on the camping trip and Samantha had hit her on the head with a piece of wood.

Shirley said that she did not remember her father ever taking the younger girls on a camping trip although it had been frequently discussed and he had asked her to look after her younger sister if they went.  She said that she had been aware of rumours that her boyfriend had been having an affair with Melissa but dismissed the news as merely rumour.  She told Mr Greahan that her father had told her about the rumours while she was pregnant but she had never taken them seriously.

Earlier today Detective Garda Pauline McDonagh gave evidence about how she had been called by Shirley’s boyfriend and arrived at the house on January 31st.  She said that both Shirley and Samantha had seemed very upset.  Shirley was holding some rosary beads and Samantha was sitting in an armchair by the fireplace in what seemed to be a chance.  Det McDonagh said that she had not known what was wrong with Samantha and had immediately gone over to her and knelt down beside her to talk to her.

She told Mr Greahan that she had “absolutely, categorically and definitely” not told McManus that the case should never have come to court.

Tomorrow we are expected to hear from McManus’s other two daughters via videolink.  An intersting day’s evidence I’m sure.

There were times, sitting in Court 2 today, that it felt as if I’d wandered into an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Evidence in a murder trial can often be dramatic but it’s rare to hear about demon slayers and reincarnated lovers, especially before lunch.

Ronald McManus, known to most witnesses as Ronnie Dunbar, sat quietly as his ex girlfriend Angelique Sheridan (formerly Dubois) recounted the most sensational evidence to come so far in trial.  He denies murdering 14-year-old Melissa Mahon and also threatening to kill his daughter Samantha.

Angelique Sheridan explained that she had met Dunbar in Sligo Post Office in the summer of 2006.  They struck up a conversation waiting in the queue , then went about their separate business.

Angelique was sitting with her daughter in McDonald’s when one of Dunbar’s daughters came in and handed her Dunbar’s phone number on a scrap of paper.  A few days later she called him and they arranged to go out.  She got dressed up, expecting to be wined and dined, but Ronnie arrived at her flat with his two younger daughters in tow and the four of them went for a spin to enjoy the summers evening.

On the way back they stopped in Lidl to get a couple of bottles of wine for Angelique and pizzas for the kids.  She told they court they were just having a nice evening together.  The Dunbar family left at around midnight.  From that day Ronnie and Angelique were an item.

Over the next few weeks they were practically inseparable.  She found him a very attentive partner “a gentleman”.  Angelique had also formed a close bond with Ronnie’s youngest daughter (who can’t be named for legal reasons).  She was “quite clingy” from that very first meeting, Angelique told the court, and it soon became a normal occurrence for the girl to stay over with Angelique.

It wasn’t surprising then that Ronnie talked to her about the 14-year-old girl who was hanging around his house.  Angelique said Ronnie had told her that he was worried about Melissa.  “He told me a young girl had come to him and told him she was being abused by her father and beaten by her mother and she had asked him for his protection.”

Angelique agreed to meet Melissa which she did at a picnic with her own daughter, Ronnies two girls, Ronnie and Melissa.  Melissa was quiet and withdrawn.  Ronnie was preoccupied with the girls and not his usual attentive self.

When Melisssa ran away from home on April 4th 2006.  Ronnie told Angelique that Melissa was staying with him.  She told the court that he told her he couldn’t tell the authorites where Melissa was because she hadn’t yet made a statement about the abuse she was suffering at home and would be sent straight back to her parents if he handed her in.

Angelique agreed to drive Melissa to a meeting with a social worker that was to take place at Slish Woods in County Sligo.  Ronnie arrived at Angelique flat with two of his daughters the night before the meeting.  Melissa was in the boot of the car hidden under a red tartan rug.

It was that night, while she talked to the girls after Ronnie had popped out for a while, that she things that threw her into a state of confusion.  She told the court that Melissa told her she was the reincarnation of Cleopatra and Ronnie was her reincarnated king.  Angelique said Ronnie’s daughter Samantha told her she could see ghosts and her father would protect her from them by catching them in his tattoos.

“One minute I had a normal boyfriend then I had a boyfriend who was a demon fighter.”  Angelique said this news worried her and she realised that Melissa needed serious professional help.

The next day she watched from the top of a nearby hill while Melissa met with the social worker Ronnie had brought with him.  After they’d left she came down from her hiding place and took Melissa home.

Angelique said the girls told her stuff that deeply disturbed her.  Ronnie’s younger daughter told her Melissa was three months pregnant by her father but it was Ronnie himself who dropped the biggest bombshell, she told the court.

Melissa was once again the topic of conversation some weeks later when Ronnie was round at her flat with his elder daughter Shirley.  Angelique said she knew that Melissa was still staying with Ronnie and had told him he would get into trouble for not telling the authorities.  She said Shirley agreed with her and told him he would go to prison.  Angelique told the court that Ronnie then said he would kill the girl before he would go to jail.  She said that he had said he had a plan and would strangle Melissa if he had to.

Ms Sheridan disagreed that this was simply a figment of her imagination and said she had not believed it so she hadn’t mentioned it to gardai when she told them she had taken Melissa to the meeting with the social worker.  She regretted it now, she said, she might have stopped it happening if she’d spoken sooner.

Melissa Mahon was a lonely child.  She had a volatile homelife, was failing in school and had fallen in with the wrong crowd.  The only person she felt truly cared for her was the man she referred to as her father and whose family she wanted to be a part of instead of her own, the man who is now on trial for killing her.

Ronald McManus, constantly referred to in court as Ronnie Dunbar, denies murdering 14-year-old Melissa some time in late September 2006 in somewhere in County Sligo.  He also denies threatening to kill or seriously injure his daughter Samantha.

Melissa Mahon was undoubtedly a troubled teen.  Listening to her social worker, Catherine Farrelly detail her interaction with the vulnerable youngster it’s hard not to see a tragedy waiting round the corner.  Melissa was a frequent runaway, sneaking out of the living room window of her home in the Rathbraughan estate in Sligo Town.  She usually didn’t go far, just to the Dunbar’s house a few minutes walk away.  By the time the HSE got involved with her case in March 2006 she had already become friendly with two of Dunbar’s daughters.

That summer she was an almost daily visitor to their house.  In August Ms Farrelly learnt, on coming back from holiday, that Melissa’s family hadn’t heard from her in a couple of weeks.  Melissa’s mother told her that the girl was probably just round in Dunbars and would come home in her own good time, but after more than two weeks the gardai were now involved and presumptions were no longer enough.

Ms Farrelly told the court that she had called to Dunbar’s house after going with Mrs Mahon to the garda station in Sligo.  Ronnie Dunbar was there and told her he had no idea where Melissa was.  He said he was worried about her and would make inquiries to see if she could be found.  Ms Farrelly said that Dunbar’s concern was obvious.  “He described her as a very hurt and very frightened human being and he questioned why the authorities hadn’t looked for her earlier.”

A few days later Dunbar rang Ms Farrelly to tell her that he had made phone contact with Melissa and he would try and get her to get in touch.  He quickly became the only link the HSE had with the missing Melissa.  He arranged a meeting in Slish Wood and once there helped the social worker to persuade Melissa to agree to admittance to the residential care home, Lios Na nOg.

Melissa was vehemently against going into care.  There wasn’t much of an option since she was alleging that her father had sexually abused her and her mother beat her.  Melissa said wanted to stay with the people she was staying with, she said, or with the Dunbars.  Catherine Farrelly told the court today that Dunbar wasn’t keen on the idea of Melissa coming to live with him.  He had not been going out with his partner for long enough to move another teenager into the house.

Eventually it was agreed but Melissa was not good at cooperating with the staff at Lios Na nOg.  She was scared and disturbed by her situation and leaned heavily on the Dunbar family for support.  She repeatedly went back to the Dunbar house.  Eventually, one week before her final disappearance, the HSE went to Sligo District Court and obtained a court order prohibiting contact between Melissa and Ronnie Dunbar.  She simply wasn’t settling in and her continuing closeness with the other family was preventing her from doing so.

But cut off from her friends, Melissa’s behaviour worsened.  She simply wasn’t settling into Lios Na nOg.  It was decided that she would be better off in temprary foster care but she ran away in her bare feet after a few hours in the foster family’s home.  She was caught sniffing lighter gas and, on the night before she disappeared, she had to be brought back to the care home by gardai.  She was found in a house in the Cartron area of Sligo Town with another girl from the house.  There were guys present and both girls had been drinking.

Ms Farrelly told the court that Melissa had cut herself that night with a broken piece of glass in protest at being taken away from the house in Cartron.

The following day, once things had calmed down, Ms Farrelly arranged to meet Melissa again.  She brought her into town to get fresh clothes in Dunnes Stores and then brought her back to the Markievicz House Health Centre to get changed.  It had been agreed that Melissa would make another go of foster care but, while Ms Farrelly called the foster family, Melissa made her get away.  She was later seen making her way towards the Rathbraughan Estate.  That was the last time anyone from the HSE saw her.