This article is from page 12 of the 2006-02-28 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 12 JPG
EAVAN Drysdale said she felt her life was in danger due to a threat from her former boyfriend Gda Pat Keating who, she claims, told her by phone on August 18, 2004 that she was the next Geraldine Kissane.
In October 2001, Geraldine Kissane was shot dead by her ex-boyfriend, Mark Simms in Shannon, before he turned the gun on himself.
Ms Drysdale told the court: “I felt that my life was in danger and that he would take his own life as he was referring to the Kissane case.”
She said that earlier that night, Gda Keating had phoned her to say if he was going down, she was going with him.
Ms Drysdale said this was in relation to a public order charge that Gda Keating was facing.
Ms Drysdale was also a witness in the case that stemmed from an incident involving the two in Shannon in March 2004.
Ms Drysdale said that on the night of August 17, the calls had started from Gda Keating after she mistakenly sent him a blank text message.
Thomas Creed, defence counsel, then read out a series of text messages that Garda Keating has a record of that came from phones owned by Ms Drysdale in April 2004.
They read, “Curl up and die, goodbye”, “Fuck off and die and do yourself a favour”, and “The only people that listen to you are the crazy voices inside your crazy head.”
Asked by Mr Creed were these abusive text messages, Ms Drysale said, “No, I wouldn’t consider them to be abusive.
“They were responding to texts from Gda Keating.”
Referring to the date of the alleged offence committed by Gda Keating, she said he said a few short words to her and she hung up, “having had a long evening of texts and phone calls from him”.
She said she had heard over the
previous four weeks that Gda Keat ing had been admitted to hospital after an attempted suicide.
“I had heard that, some time in July, hence the reason I’d take his accusation very seriously. I was scared.”
It was put to her in cross examination by Mr Creed that she said to Gda Keating she hoped his next suicide attempt would be successful, but in court she said, “I don’t recall saying that.”