Scarlett Faulkner ‘terrified’ of what boyfriend’s ex-wife would do, trial hears

Scarlett Faulkner was “terrified” of her new boyfriend’s ex-wife, who is on trial for her murder, and believed she was “going to do something bad to her” in the hours before she was beaten to death, a witness has told the Central Criminal Court.

The trial also heard on Wednesday that a passerby, Niamh Floyd, saw a woman at the scene of Scarlett Faulkner’s alleged murder running towards the car in which she was a passenger. Floyd described the woman holding on to the mirror of the car as the witness told her partner to drive away.

Looking through the car’s rear window, Floyd said she could see someone holding what might have been a weapon and moving towards the woman.

She said she looked away, because she “didn’t want to see what was going to happen after that”. Floyd said she and her partner called emergency services and said someone could be injured and an ambulance might be needed.

The trial also heard from a witness, who cannot be named for legal reasons, who said her then partner was a close friend of the married man Scarlett Faulkner had begun seeing.

She said Scarlett Faulkner and her new boyfriend called to her apartment in Limerick City on Saturday, March 21st last, the same day the deceased received injuries that led to her death.

She told prosecution counsel Seoirse Ó Dúnlaing that Scarlett Faulkner spoke to her about her new relationship and said she “knew” her boyfriend’s ex-wife was “going to do something bad to her” and that she was “terrified”.

It is the prosecution’s case that later that evening, the 41-year-old accused rammed her ex-husband’s van off the road before a then 16-year-old girl beat Scarlett Faulkner to death with a metal pole.

Opening the case this week, Ó Dúnlaing said that although the evidence will be that all the injuries suffered by the deceased were inflicted by the teenage girl, both accused engaged in a joint enterprise to kill or cause serious harm.

He said they had “hunted down” the accused woman’s former husband and Scarlett Faulkner with the intention of causing serious harm to both of them.

The now 17-year-old, who cannot be identified because she is a minor, has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter.

Her co-accused pleaded not guilty to murdering Scarlett Faulkner (28), who died on April 13th this year. She also pleaded not guilty to burglary, entering a building as a trespasser and causing criminal damage at an address in Co Tipperary, on March 20th.

She pleaded not guilty to a further charge of burglary and committing assault causing harm, at an address in Limerick on March 21st.

Wednesday’s first witness said that shortly after Scarlett Faulkner and her boyfriend had left the apartment, a teenage boy and the accused woman arrived.

She said the accused was “roaring”, demanding to know where her ex-husband was and struck the witness’s partner with her fist, causing a cut to his lip. The teenager used the baseball bat to strike the same man, causing a cut to the back of his head.

Chelsea Poneyi said she and her boyfriend, Jeffery Buckley, lived with the previous witness and her partner, who owned the apartment, for about two months. On March 21st this year, she said she recalled Scarlett Faulkner and her new boyfriend were doing drugs in a bedroom in the apartment.

Poneyi said she believed they were smoking crack cocaine but she would always go into her own room when others in the apartment started taking drugs. From her room, she said she could hear “bickering” between Scarlett Faulkner and her boyfriend.

Poneyi fell asleep but was awoken by the accused “barging” into her room demanding to know where her ex-husband was. The witness told her she did not know him and when she got out of bed, she saw the younger male carrying a baseball bat.

She said she did not want to get involved in “whatever that situation was”, so she closed the bedroom door. She said she could hear the accused asking the apartment owner where her ex-husband and Scarlett Faulkner were.

As the accused was leaving the apartment, Poneyi said she heard her saying that if any of them contacted gardaí, “they would be dead”.

Marc Thompson SC, for the older accused, said his client takes no issue with most of Poneyi’s evidence. However, he said his client has no memory of ever asking to know where Scarlett Faulkner was.