APRIL Collins, the 24-year-old mother of three children with her former partner and convicted criminal Ger Dundon, told a sitting of the Special Criminal Court that she is in a relationship with a convicted gang rapist. Ms Collins was giving evidence in the case of two brothers, John and Wayne Dundon, who are charged with threatening top kill Ms Collins, her two brothers and her mother. Under the protection of six armed members of the Emergency Response Unit, April Collins,
told of separate encounters where she alleges that Wayne Dundon threatened to kill her if anything happened to his brother after she had refused to bring their children to see their father in prison. “I knew he’d kill me,” she said, after she ended the eight-year relationship with Ger Dundon who was incarcerated on April 23, 2010, and was later sentenced to five years in prison after he was found guilty of violent disorder. The court heard from Ms Collins that the relationship between her and Ger Dundon broke down after he was sentenced.
When cross-examined by defence counsel Bryan McCartney for John Dundon, Ms Collins acknowledged that she was seen in a “loving embrace,” with Thomas O’Neill, the convicted gang rapist originally from Lenihan Avenue, but said that he (O’Neill) was not violent to her or her children.
Stating that he O’Neill) was not a paedophile, she added that “He made a mistake when he was 14, he served a sentence for that”. Ms Collins said: “He’s never been violent to me or my kids,” when Mr McCartney, QC, acting for John Dundon, pressed her on O’Neill being a “violent sex offender”.
The court heard a taped recording of an intercepted telephone conversation between Ger Dundon and April Collins where the release from prison of Thomas O’Neill was discussed between the two. Such was the concern for his children, Mr McCartney put it to April Collins that Ger Dundon employed a priest and a nun to intervene on his behalf over this “relationship of betrayal,” and to try and gain access to see his children while in prison.
The three judge court heard that Ms Collins, recalled an incident on September 30 when four females associated with the Dundon brothers and a number of their cohorts, arrived outside the home of Alice Collins, her mother, and attacked a jeep owned by Alice that had been parked outside.
April Collins said that she had been sitting in the garden and that the children were playing there when the incident occurred. Shortly after the gardai arrived to the scene, Wayne Dundon, she said, arrived to the house. April Collins then said that she was aware that Wayne Dundon went to England for a few months after the incident. Knowing that Wayne Dundon returned to Ireland in March 2011, April Collins said that she had been hoovering in her hallway on the morning of March 25 at home. Her front door was open when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
Wayne Dundon, she alleged, asked to come into the house and speak to her. She sat on the couch and Wayne stood in front of her. Ms Collins said that he was very angry and asked: “What’s going on with you and Ger, you’re not letting the kids up to see him. Annabell’s (Dundon’s sister) been telling us”. Wayne Dundon had been asking about the breakdown in the relationship between the young couple and Ms Collins said she started crying.
Ms Collins then told Tom O’Connell SC, that Wayne Dundon threatened her, saying “If anything happens to Ger, I’ll kill you over it”.
Sitting across the court from the two accused, Ms Collins, the chief prosecution witness, said she did not want to take notice of Wayne and John and averted her eyes away from them. In a softly spoken and timid voice, April Collins added that Wayne Dundon threatened the life of her brother Gareth, who he blamed for a fire at the Dundon house. “He won’t get away with it, he won’t get through the {prison} gates.”
In further evidence offered to the court, Mr Justice Paul Butler, Judge Allison Lindsay and Judge Flann Brennan, heard that April Collins said that on April 3, 2011, John Dundon called to her home and was “beating down the front door saying ‘come out you tramp, I know you’re in there, I want to see my nephews”.
She add that John Dundon shouted “I’m going to f**king kill you”.
Later that night and into the early hours of the following morning, April Collins said that she heard voices in her back garden and looked out to see John Dundon standing on a shed.
She claimed that she asked Dundon what he was doing and he told her that he was “looking for a good place to bury your mother”.
April Collins said that she was terrified after these events and both her and her mother decided to make statements to gardai. Wayne Dundon, 33, of Lenihan Avenue and John Dundon, 30, of Hyde Avenue, have denied the threats and pleaded not guilty to making threats against four members of the Collins family in 2010 and 2011.
