The Irish Scissor Sisters (33 page)

Mr Finn later stated: ‘Farah would be quite abusive at times to me when I’d collect the rent, he could be quite contentious. Kathleen would be the pacifier, always telling Farah to leave me alone, that I was only doing my job. Farah I believe thought he was regularly the victim of racism. I think he could provoke people and got into fights. That’s what I heard anyway.’

Apart from Farah drunkenly abusing him, Mr Finn didn’t have any real trouble with the couple and was never called to the house for any disturbances.

Other tenants had complained about noise and fights at night and often rang the guards or Barry Sheehan. One such tenant who was not impressed with Farah Noor was Michael Mulrey who lived in Flat 4, directly under Farah and Kathleen. He felt that Noor was a violent man when he had been drinking. Mulrey had had a run-in with Farah in the pub after he refused to shake Noor’s hand. The Kenyan also wrongly thought that Mulrey was responsible for cutting the wheel on his bicycle. Michael Mulrey did have time for Kathleen ‘when she wasn’t drinking’. He later said she knew that he was getting hospital treatment for an illness and made an effort to be extra quiet at night so he could rest. The forty-eight-year-old also remembered that Kathleen was very heavily pregnant when she came into the house ‘and then very suddenly she wasn’t’. He heard that the landlord had to get a lot of blood cleaned from the flat because she’d lost her child.

Around this time Charlotte was a frequent visitor to the city and was going out with an African man for a while. She used to stay with her mother and Farah told a few people that they were not getting on. He said he was unhappy that Charlotte was with them. He complained that she drank far too much vodka and used to go through bottles each day.

Linda and Charlotte also visited Cork together on at least one occasion and stayed with their mother in the flat. Michael Mulrey remembered seeing the two girls with Kathleen but took them to be her sisters: ‘They were rough and in my opinion they were hookers. There used to be fierce rows between them all. I remember one occasion when Farah was shouting at them, as he came down the stairs, that they were all tramps and prostitutes and they responded in equally colourful language. The girls would roar at each other and when Farah was there, roar at him. I thought they were well-matched.’

When Michael Mulrey heard on the news that it was Farah Noor’s body that had been cut up and pulled from the Royal Canal in Dublin, he ‘straight away thought of the three women: Kathleen and her two sisters. I think they would be well able to do that. They were very rough.’

At one stage, the fire brigade had to be called to the flat to free Kathleen after she got stuck in the bathroom. Farah and Kathleen would also often ring Gerard Finn about a leak in the skylight and this once caused their TV to blow up. In addition they also had regular problems with their shower, which was often clogged up, and they were angry about this. They didn’t make any effort to do up the flat while they were there, however.

Barry Sheehan was annoyed because they were so bad about paying him and he threatened to evict them several times. The last time he went to collect rent was 10 September 2004. Farah gave him €66 and Kathleen handed over €20. One night soon afterwards the couple left the house, still owing rent, and didn’t return their keys.

Hamed Salim Miran used to bump into Farah and Kathleen on Patrick Street in the city and would often go out drinking in pubs with them. Miran was from Somalia and knew Farah Noor from back home. They regularly spoke about Africa in Swahili, a language Farah also spoke, and spent a bit of time together. They had given Farah the nickname ‘America’ because when he first arrived in Ireland he rang his wife and said: ‘I’m in America; I’m not coming home.’ Although Farah was from Kenya he was such a skilled liar that he even managed to convince his close friends that he was Somalian. They never suspected his true identity.

When Hamed first came to Cork in late 2003, Farah had told him that Kathleen was pregnant but she didn’t look like she’d much of a bump. He remembered, however, that Kathleen regularly used to complain that she was having stomach pains. Miran didn’t like Kathleen and said she had a ‘devilish’ look about her and he ‘didn’t like the look of her’. He used to notice that Farah often had cuts and bruises on his face.

Farah invited Ahmed and Hamed over for Christmas Day in 2003 and they all had dinner together. A few days later, just after the New Year, Farah rang Ahmed Ahmed on his mobile and told him that he had had a fight with Kathleen. The following morning he turned up at his old flat at Wellington Terrace, with all his bags. He said that Kathleen had had a miscarriage four months into her pregnancy, and he was going to stay with someone in Kilkenny. He told the two men that he’d had a big row with Kathleen the night before and that one of her sons had pulled a knife on him because he saw Farah hitting his mother. Farah panicked and jumped from the second floor window and hurt his leg but wouldn’t go to hospital, but Kathleen was brought there by ambulance. Farah wouldn’t stay with his two friends and supposedly left for Kilkenny, but Hamed ran into him in the city two or three days later. His friend told him that the two were back together. Hamed thought that Farah used to drink a lot and would ‘become a different person’ with drink on him. He thought that Farah also used soft drugs. Hamed met Charlotte Mulhall a few times and later remembered that she was regularly down from Dublin, visiting her mother.

In the run-up to Christmas 2003 Farah registered for FÁS courses in computers and retail sales. He started the six-month computer course in December. It was taught by a woman named Breda Murphy and took place at the National Software Centre in Mahon. Classes were on in the afternoon and Farah often came in with cement on his clothes after he had spent the morning working on building sites. Breda Murphy remembers Farah as being very likeable. She said: ‘He was very quiet but would take a slagging and give one.’ He didn’t have great English but got on well with all his classmates and rarely missed days. He also always phoned when he wasn’t going to be in. Farah never smelled of drink during the computer course but would sometimes look at the screen blankly. Breda Murphy said he wasn’t very good with the computer ‘and appeared to be of low intelligence’ but that he enjoyed playing Solitaire.

Farah told people on the course that he had three children in Somalia, two in Dublin and that Kathleen Mulhall was pregnant with his sixth child. The tutor got the impression that Farah was involved in a custody battle over his children in Dublin and remembers that in March or April 2004 Farah came back from Dublin with cuts and bruises to his face. He said he had been beaten up because of his colour.

Breda Murphy was only ever out once with Farah socially and that was on the final day of the course. Farah attended the afternoon course and a separate group met in the morning. Both groups came together for the first time at a pub called the Cloverhill House, in Mahon. They had had lunch and a few drinks when Noor became involved in a scuffle with another student. People said they were fighting because the African claimed he was overcharged for some drugs. Some of the group seemed to get drunk very quickly and were knocking back whiskey outside the pub. Breda Murphy intervened to break up what could have developed into a fist fight. Farah then told her that if anyone upset her he would kill them for her. She laughed it off and joked that she’d keep his number close in case she ever needed it. A few people laughed and Farah got insulted because he was being serious. Breda Murphy remembers thinking that Farah wasn’t very pleasant when he had been drinking. She didn’t see him again after that last day.

Breda met Kathleen two or three times during the course and found her to be very polite. She thought she looked like a ‘reformed alcoholic – kinda shook, but tidied up’. Kathleen always wore smocks and spoke to Breda about her baby.

After he completed the computer-training course, Farah started his second FÁS training scheme, attending a ten-week retail sales course at the end of June 2004. This also took place in Mahon and there were eighteen other people in his class.

Farah sat beside forty-four-year-old Carolyn Murphy, who lived with her three children in Mahon. Carolyn found Farah to be quiet but ‘a very humble sort of fella’. She gave him a spare highlighter one day and told him to keep it and ‘it was like the best thing ever to him’. Farah had poor English, she said, ‘except when he spoke about money – it seemed perfect when he spoke about that’. He told Carolyn that his wife had been murdered in the genocide in Somalia and that his father was looking after his children. He said he couldn’t re-enter the country and his kids couldn’t get out. He bragged that he could have six wives because he was a Muslim and already had gone through three. Carolyn used to have a good laugh with him and joked that she wouldn’t be number four. Farah once confided in Carolyn that he had no money and got food vouchers through St Patrick’s Church after going there late at night looking for food. He also claimed that he got a lot of hassle because of his colour and said that his colleagues on the building sites used to refer to him as ‘Al Qaeda’ after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Noor claimed that when George W Bush was due to come on an official trip to Ireland, gardaí arrested him in Cork one night as a terror suspect because he was Muslim and black.

Fifty-year-old Carol Elliot was also in the class and later told gardaí that Farah ‘knew how to work the system’ and was able to get away with not turning up every day. Noor told his colleagues that his partner ‘was on her last legs’ and that he had seven kids by two different women in Dublin. He used to complain that he was getting a raw deal in Ireland and said he was going to quit the course because the government had agreed to give him €2,000 to go to New Zealand. This was total rubbish but Farah liked to tell stories and regularly made things up. Noor also said he had another girlfriend in Cork who was pregnant but he wasn’t bringing her to New Zealand with him because it was too cold for the child there but once he had settled he would send for them. Carol said: ‘Every day he turned up in class he had the same story to tell us. You wouldn’t believe half of it. He was a con artist.’ His classmates all noticed that he fancied a young girl who was doing the same course. Farah could hardly keep his eyes off her.

The last time Carol saw Noor was when he was at FÁS collecting his cheque. All students participating in FÁS courses are paid a weekly wage to supplement their social welfare payments. The courses are designed to help to prepare people to get back into the workplace. He had a boy of about eight with him and said the lad was his son. ‘Farah’s eyes were rolling around in his head. He used drugs, definitely, I’d say.’

Michael Foran was also on Noor’s FÁS course. The two men used to get the bus together every day and spent the journeys chatting. The pair became quite friendly and used to socialise together as well. Foran liked Farah and said he got on with everyone in the class but found it a little daunting. Noor spoke very good English but had difficulty understanding accents and struggled in Cork where the local accent is very pronounced. Michael remembered that Farah liked women and had said that he had two children in Dublin, ‘His plan was to have a child on every continent.’ Noor used to reminisce about his life in Somalia and talked about how he was a ‘gigolo on the beaches’. He bragged that he and his friend used to go onto boats with older Italian women. Noor also confided in his Irish friend that he had a UN passport because he was a war refugee and said he planned to leave Ireland for Canada. He said that his wife had been shot dead back home in Somalia.

Michael Foran met up with Farah and Kathleen in August 2004 at the Oval Bar in the city. They met at around 10 p.m. and Farah was ‘fairly well on’. Foran thought that Kathleen looked about eight months pregnant. She sat by herself all night and didn’t say one word, not even hello. She was drinking minerals all evening and Foran didn’t stay long. He remembered that Farah was a heavy drinker who used to go to the KLM bar down by the docks each evening and ‘drink himself into oblivion’. He said his friend smoked hash but he didn’t think he used any other drugs.

In early September 2004 Foran met Noor in Fitzgerald’s Park and he bragged that he had been arrested the previous night. He said he had only been released from custody that morning. Foran got the impression that he might have been very drunk and was detained for his own protection. He was with two young children, aged about five and seven, and said they were his sons. Both of the kids were totally white, however, and did not resemble the African. The guards do not know who they were but there is a possibility that they were Linda’s children.

Michael Foran and Farah kept in contact and had exchanged telephone numbers. Foran also had Kathleen’s number because there was a problem with their FÁS cheques one week and Farah wanted to be contacted when Michael found out what had happened.

Farah was frequently absent from his course and eventually decided to drop out. On his last day he told Carolyn Murphy that he got a job in construction in Dublin and was leaving. He said he needed to earn money for his baby.