02/07/00 - Family's hope in murder case
BY NIAMH O'CONNOR
Ireland on Sunday

THE FAMILY of Alison Shaughnessy are prepared to clutch at any straw in their battle to have their daughter's case re-opened. Although they are aware of Bernard O'Mahoney's shady background, they believe that the fact he is in possession of new information is more important than his means of obtaining it.

"We have known for a long time who he is and the letter he has," Alison's mother Breda Blackmore said. "It doesn't matter how; he got the information. The fact is we know it exists and we are trying to get a copy of it for ourselves," she added. Breda and Bobby moved back to their home town of Piltown, Co Kilkenny, seven years ago.

They had spent a lifetime - 34 years - in London but returned after the two Taylor sisters were acquitted of Alison's murder. They wanted to protect their youngest son, Richard, then 11 years old, from hearing the stories about how she had died. "It was just that Alison and John used to take him out a lot and we wanted to make sure he didn't hear the details about her death.

He was too young, it would have ruined him," Breda told Ireland on Sunday. The details surrounding the murder of the young Barclay's bank worker could not have been more gruesome. She was butchered by someone she trusted enough to allow into her home, suffering 54 stab wounds.

Her body was discovered by her husband, John Shaughnessy, who worked as a purchasing manager in a private hospital where Michelle Taylor was a cleaner. Michelle had even travelled to Kilkenny for the couple's wedding and was pictured kissing Alison as she left the Church of the Assumption in Piltown.

The tabloids labelled the picture the "Judas Kiss". The prosecution case was that when Michelle learned that Alison and John were planning on moving back to Ireland permanently, she tipped over the edge and murdered her while her sister Lisa kept watch on the doorway Michelle Taylor had given John a lift home on the day his wife was murdered.

As she dropped him off, she asked him if she could use the bathroom. John entered the house carrying a bunch of flowers for his wife; his mistress was behind him. As he entered his home, John said: "That's odd" because the mortise lock was open - his wife always locked it.

At the top of the stairs he found her mutilated body He screamed: "Alison" and then said repeatedly: "I don't know what's happened." Michelle Taylor ran forward and put her arms around Alison's body thereby destroying any potential forensic evidence.

Her fingerprints were now all over the scene and she was covered in Alison's blood and in fibres from her clothes. But she quickly became the prime suspect. One witness remembered seeing a car like Michelle's parked around the corner at the time of the murder and a doctor reported seeing two girls hurrying out of the house at the time, carrying what appeared to be a laundry bag.

There was also forensic evidence - Lisa Taylor claimed she had never been in the Shaughnessy's flat but her fingerprint was found at the scene. The most damning evidence of all was the Taylor sisters' attempt to manufacture a false alibi. During the trial, Alison's parents and John Shaughnessy were united in their conviction that the Taylors were guilty.

They arrived at the trial together but they have not kept in contact although Shaughnessy also returned to live and work in Ireland. From his workplace in McDonald's in Castlebar, Co. Mayo, he refused to answer any questions or call for a re-opening of the case. "I have no comment," he told Ireland on Sunday this weekend.

THE FAMILY goes back to London every year for Alison's anniversary "She is buried here, but it is important for us to go home to the church in London every June because she was baptised there, she made her Communion and confirmation there and because so many local people loved her and have keep asking us what's happening with her case," Breda says.

They say they will continue to battle whatever hurdles they have to keep the fight for justice for Alison alive. They plan to write to Bertie Ahern to ask him to intervene. "Alison was a wonderful girl, sensitive and loving and funny. She was a beautiful baby and she grew into a beautiful woman.

"After the acquittal, the police told us they were not looking for anyone eIse in connection with her murder. It's has been nearly impossible for us to deal with. "Bernard O'Mahoney befriended Michelle Taylor when she was prison by writing to her and when she got out they had a relationship.

He came across a bundle of documents which contain a letter in which Michelle makes certain admissions. That is what matters," she added.