This piteous, wretched 'devil in the red dress' still casts a spell
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SHARON Collins sat down with a thud that all but resounded in the silence of a courtroom still struggling to absorb the judge's words.
Her younger son, David, instantly wrapped his arm protectively around his mother's small frame and whispered soothing words in her ear.
Aside from a shade of relief, there was little sign of emotion from any of the key players in this trial as Collins received her sentence.
It seemed it had already been spent in a day that had turned out to be longer than expected and too full of drama, marking the end of a bizarre trial that had already tested the boundaries of credibility to the maximum.
The self-styled 'devil in the red dress' made for a piteous and wretched figure as she took her seat in Courtroom Two yesterday for the final chapter in this saga. No femme fatale she looked in her lilac shirt and black trouser suit, with her face pinched and drawn, devoid of make-up, and her hair a distinctly brassier shade of blonde after her spell in custody since being found guilty last July of conspiracy to murder.
Beside her, her elderly mother, Bernadette Coote took up her seat close to Sharon's two sons, Gary (25) and David (23), who both appeared poignantly gaunt and hollow-eyed as they awaited their mother's outcome.
Essam Eid -- the Las Vegas poker dealer Collins had conjured up from the depths of the internet in her search for a hitman to kill her older lover, PJ Howard and his two sons, Robert and Niall -- was beaming in a sunny and most surreal fashion.
Meanwhile the entire body of the courtroom -- packed as it was with family members, media, trainee barristers and general sightseers -- had been greatly startled to witness the unexpected appearance of PJ Howard and his sons.
Perhaps the only person to take it in her stride was Sharon Collins herself, who gazed frequently over at the Ennis businessman in what appeared to be a meaningful fashion, her eyes angelically soulful. And no wonder, as it later emerged, when PJ Howard took the stand in the afternoon to make a defiant plea on behalf of the woman he described as "one of the nicest people you could ever have been fortunate to know".
Ruthless
This, despite a raft of evidence that showed the ruthless determination with which she had tried to inherit his €60m business.
We wondered afresh at the bewitching effects this demure blonde had inspired in her men --Howard and her ex-husband, Noel Collins, who yesterday took the witness box to tell, in a quavering voice, of the great mother who had always put the boys first.
She also appeared to have impressed others she'd encountered. In letters, the chaplain of the Dochas centre described her to be "pleasant and respectful"; to the assistant governor of Mountjoy she is an "excellent worker, well motivated... a model prisoner".
This bizarre trial took a further incredulous twist when we heard that even Willie Walsh, the Bishop of Killaloe, had always known her to be an "open, truthful and caring person" and did not believe a prolonged prison sentence for Sharon Collins would serve any purpose.
As Sharon Collins listened to the kind words and testimonies on her behalf, she seemed to fight back the tears. Worse again was the evidence of the suffering caused to those whom she loved the most.
Her two sons, now left bereft; the failing health of her elderly mother, now forced to do her shopping by night because of the scandal; her two sisters who felt they had no choice but to move away from Co Clare.
And at the end of it all, PJ Howard, in a tremulous voice, vowing not to give up on her, saying he would have no hesitation whatsoever in living with her again.
Casting such spells on him as she did, it seemed Collins really was the 'devil in the red dress'.
