This article is from page 7 of the 2013-01-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 7 JPG
IN HER first interview since being released from prison, Ennis woman Sharon Collins has protested her innocence of the crimes she was convicted of and spent nearly four years in jail for.
The 49-year-old, who was socialising in Ennis over the Christmas period and is believed to be planning to move back to live in her native town, has stated publicly that she hopes to find out who framed her for the crime of trying to have her partner PJ Howard and his two sons Niall and Robert murdered.
“You just have to try to be dignified and hope that eventually you will be able to prove that it wasn’t you,” said Collins in an interview in a Sunday newspaper.
“It is so elaborate and there is so much. I couldn’t imagine doing that for starters – but if you could try to put yourself in the position of somebody who did that?
“Well you wouldn’t leave that sort of trail. It’s just too much. It’s just too much. It wasn’t me. That’s all I can say to that. I didn’t leave that trail behind me. I just hope someday I will be able to prove who it was,” she added.
In November 2008, Collins was was jailed for six years after a Central Criminal Court jury found her guilty of soliciting a man to murder PJ Howard, and his two sons, Robert and Niall Howard, on August 15, 2006.
Collins, who was accused of using the internet handle “lying-eyes98” to investigate the hiring of a hitman on the internet, was also found guilty on three counts of conspiring to kill the three men.
Her trial heard she tried to hire Egyptian-born Las Vegas poker dealer Essam Eid to carry out the killings. While sentenced in November 2008, she was convicted in July 2008, and was held in prison from that date.
In late 2011, Ms Collins lost an appeal against the conviction with the court rejecting all 23 grounds of her case, but she was granted temporary release after serving three years and nine months of her sentence ahead of the completion of her sentence in December.
Ms Collins has revealed that she is now concentrating on her career, with two books on her story now in the pipeline, while a movie deal is also in the offing as several shows in the US fight to secure her first television appearance.