The mother of a child abducted and shot dead by her father almost three years ago has expressed her "surprise" at a campaign by the family of a woman convicted in connection with the abduction to clear her name.
Six-year-old Deirdre Crowley was murdered by her father, Christopher Crowley, who then took his own life, on August 30th, 2001, at a house in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, where he had been in hiding with the child. He had been on the run with her since 1999.
Regina Nelligan (34), Carriganagroghera, Fermoy, Co Cork, was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in February last year for her part in the abduction. She was released last weekend. Her family now claims she was scapegoated and that she committed no crime.
Deirdre Crowley's mother, Ms Christine O'Sullivan, yesterday said she was "surprised" at the development, since Regina Nelligan pleaded guilty at her trial and did not lodge an appeal against her sentence or conviction.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio 1's News At One, she said Ms Nelligan had a "fairly weighty" legal team and if she had been innocent or wrongly charged, she had the option to appeal. "She chose not to go down that road."
Asked whether Ms Nelligan's family might argue she had been acting out of "compassion" for the child, Ms Crowley disagreed.
She said Regina Nelligan had been interviewed on a number of occasions by gardaí, who had pleaded with her to give any information she had about Deirdre's whereabouts.
"I have absolutely no doubt whatever that if she, and indeed all the others who were involved in concealing Deirdre's whereabouts, if any one of them, even one person, had told the truth, Deirdre would be alive today."
Ms O'Sullivan, who now lives in Cork, said it was a "very hard burden" to realise there were people "out there" who had "effectively sentenced Deirdre to death".