A DUBLIN mechanic is to be sentenced next week for killing his partner in what he claimed was an accidental shooting.
Bernard Curran (53), The Weir, Lucan, was before the Central Criminal Court yesterday, where he admitted killing mother of one Helen Donegan (30)
Curran, a father of two, had originally been charged with murdering the Ballyfermot native between May 4th and June 22nd, 2010. However, the prosecution accepted his plea of not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter.
The court heard that Curran had been living with Ms Donegan at various addresses for eight or nine years. She had a heroin addiction and they were moving out of their home in St Patrick’s Park, Celbridge on the day of her death.
Brendan Grehan SC, prosecuting, said she was last seen on May 4th, 2010, and the accused reported her missing to their local Garda station on May 17th.
On the same day, the defendant handed in his shotgun to another Garda station to be destroyed as he said he was not renewing his licence, counsel said.
Mr Grehan said that Curran’s garage in Castlebaggot, Co Dublin, was searched by gardaí on June 22nd. Curran left while they searched and Ms Donegan’s body was found wrapped in plastic in the boot of an estate car.
A postmortem found she had died from a single gunshot wound to her heart.
The accused had arranged to meet the gardaí that evening. “I know you know I did it,” he told them. “It was an accident . . . It should have been me.”
Det Sgt Declan Dunne told the court that in a subsequent Garda interview the accused had said, “I wanted to shoot myself. She grabbed the gun and it went off.” He had also told gardaí: “We were moving out of the apartment and I was considering killing myself.” He said he had wanted to get away from her but could not.
He said they had just moved their belongings to his garage while they looked for a new home.
“I just wanted to end it. I got the shotgun and put one into it and I put it into my mouth,” he told detectives. “She came in. I didn’t even hear her.” He said he had been facing the back of his garage when she approached him from his left. “She grabbed it. The gun turned and went bang,” the accused told gardaí.
“My finger was on the trigger. It just went off,” he had said. “I didn’t physically pull it.”
“It was over very quick,” he added. “Why didn’t she just stay outside and I’d be dead?” He said he had considered calling the Garda but had thought nobody would believe him. “It should have been me,” he said.
He said he had put the gun back in its case and covered Ms Donegan with a blanket for a few days. “I just couldn’t dump her,” he said.
He agreed that he had moved her body before a previous Garda search of his premises but had moved it back afterwards.
“I was deciding where I was going to bury her,” he said. “I was thinking of looking for a deep overgrown ditch, but didn’t want her to be found like that.”
Det Sgt Dunne said Curran was crying at this point of the interview. He told the court that ballistics experts agreed it was possible that the scenario put forward by the accused was correct.
Curran said Ms Donegan had told him on May 6th that she was going to England on a drug run to make some money. He had tried to convince her not to go, he said. He claimed that when she hadn’t returned within 10 days he had become concerned.
Ms Donegan’s aunt, Caroline O’Connor, gave a victim impact statement on behalf of her family and handed Mr Justice Paul Carney two photographs of her.
She said Ms Donegan’s son was only 12 when she died and that for the first six months, he had hoped she was in Spain. She said that he had not alone lost his mother, but now hated the man he had once viewed as a father.
Mr Justice Carney remanded Curran in custody for sentencing on Monday next.