NOT MANY people know this, but criminal suspects are entitled to write to the DPP to plead their case. When Sharon Collins discovered this, she wrote to him three times.
The lengthy missives written in 2007, which devoured most of yesterday's court time before a perspiring, exhausted-looking jury, covered personal ground, up to the point where events unfolded to make her feel "like I had died and gone to hell".
There had been frequent pilgrimages to Lough Derg and daily prayer to maintain her sanity. To get across her bemusement at the case against her, she explained to the DPP that she had adopted a "murderous" frame of mind so as to better outline why "basically a five-year-old would have covered their tracks better".
If the case went to trial, she wrote back then, she foresaw a grave impact on her own health - "I admit I have seriously considered suicide" - and that of various family members. There was her partner PJ and his quadruple bypass - "he only has two dogs and will eat only junk food"; her vulnerable sons; her mother who hadn't heard the news at that stage; her sisters - one a teacher, the other "some kind of a psychologist in the Department of Education".
A niece who is a barrister was included as someone who might advise them all against bombarding the DPP with yet more letters, once they found out about the case.
"As you know, my life is very much in your hands . . . I would ask you not to have me charged in relation to this matter."
After a marriage at 19, the birth of two sons, and separation at 27, she wrote how in November 1998, she met 57-year-old PJ Howard, a successful businessman, who had two sons and was separated from his wife, Theresa ("by all accounts a decent woman"). He had lived with his partner Bernie, to whom he was "extremely close", until her death in February 1998, which had left him "devastated".
And though some might say it was a bit soon to be meeting someone new, he was lonely, said Ms Collins, and needed a woman to look after him, as men do. Plus, she had noticed him around Ennis a long time before, when she was nine or ten and "he was a grown man . . . Then when I saw him walking into my shop [in 1998], I knew he was coming for me. It was almost like a premonition." He invited her and her two sons to stay over Christmas and there they remained, moving out only for a few days in February, around the first anniversary of Bernie's death. "He wanted to be alone."
But life was good, with the Spanish apartment and the boat in Benalmadena. She loved PJ, she said. They were "as happy as Larry" despite "the ups and downs" and his reluctance to marry her, stressing his generosity to herself and her sons. In fact, he had encouraged her to write these letters and had been "amazingly supportive". But meanwhile, her son David had been ordered to leave the Howard home by PJ's son.
And Robert, the Howard son with whom she felt she had a special relationship, seemed determined "to point the finger at her" in relation to allegations, she said, noting that her "marriage" to PJ had gone down "like a lead balloon" with the Howard sons.
There was a PS to the final letter. Her son had just rung to say he was under pressure to tell his boss what was wrong, or he would be fired. "Is it fair that a young man should suffer like this?" she asked the DPP. "Who would be responsible for that?"