The trial of two women who are charged with the murder of Scarlett Faulkner in Birr, Co. Offaly earlier this year, has begun at the Central Criminal Court.
A jury of eight men and four women heard the opening arguments of prosecuting counsel, Seoirse Ó Dúnlaing SC, who said that Ms Faulkner (28) was hunted down by the two women after it came to light that she had begun a relationship with a former partner of the older accused (41).
Yesterday, the 17-year-old accused, who cannot be identified because she is a minor, pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter. Her 41-year-old co-accused pleaded not guilty to murder.
The older woman also pleaded not guilty to burglary, entering a building as a trespasser and causing criminal damage at an address in Co Tipperary on 20 March.
The jury heard that both are charged with the offence of murder and that the older is also accused of two charges of burglary related to incidents which were part of “hunting” for Ms Faulkner and the man.
Ó Dúnlaing said that the victim had died after sustaining a “traumatic brain injury” after the prosecution alleges that the then 16-year-old accused hit her with “ferocious and brutal” force 10 to 11 times on the head with a 62cm metal pipe, which was shown and held by the jury.
Mr Ó Dúnlaing said that the girl intended to “kill or to cause a serious injury” to the victim, who survived the initial assault but passed away in hospital.
The court heard that the older woman had contacted Ms Faulkner sister on Facebook on the 20th of March 2025 by sending her a message saying,
“Your smell-bag of a sister will pay for what she done,” and “When I get her, I’ll draw a map of Ireland on her face.”
He described the 41-year-old visiting the homeplace of her ex-partner’s parents, looking for him and Scarlett, and that she also went to an apartment with her son, who was armed with a bat.
He said that CCTV would show the woman inflicting criminal damage on the homeplace of her ex’s parents and that she had “an axe” with her on that occasion. When the CCTV was played for the jury after lunch, Garda Sergeant Dave Harney identified the woman wearing a “teddy bear” dressing gown during this incident. He also identified the younger accused at the scene.
The court heard that the victim and the man had been at the apartment but had left a short time before the 41-year-old came looking for them.
He argued that the woman, having located the pair travelling in a vehicle, used her car to ram the other car “off the road”.
Mr Ó Dúnlaing argued that Scarlett then left the vehicle and “runs across the road” before the assault on her was captured on dashcams and other phone cameras.
He told the jury that they would see the younger woman “hitting Scarlett Faulkner with the iron bar” before the older woman brought her back into her car to make an escape.
The jury heard that shortly before her death, Ms Faulkner had been released from prison after serving a three-month sentence and that she was a woman “with her own personal issues”.
He said that it was the prosecution’s case that when the younger female struck the victim with the pole, she was acting as part of a “common design” with the older woman to kill or cause serious harm to the victim.
Scarlett’s younger sister, Victoria Faulkner, told a jury that she received a series of abusive and threatening messages and calls from the older accused in the days before Scarlett was found critically injured.
Ms Faulkner, a prosecution witness, told the court that Scarlett, who was almost 29 when she died on April 13th, was the second youngest of 16 children.
Ms Faulkner said Scarlett had a daughter with a man, with whom she had been in a relationship for eight years since 2010. She said the father of her child was “in and out of jail”, and that Scarlett had also begun to “get into trouble with gardaí” and had been in and out of prison. Her last sentence was for theft charges, which the witness described as “nothing serious”.
After her release, Scarlett visited Victoria and her children, and they spent time together. Ms Faulkner said Scarlett asked her to call a taxi for her when she was leaving her house that day.
“That was the very last time I seen her,” she said. She added that the next time she saw her sister was “on a hospital bed” and described her as being “dead”.
Ms Faulkner told the jury that on Friday, March 20th, she received two messages on Facebook Messenger. One was from a person who had seen Scarlett. The other came after she posted that her sister was missing, and was from the older of the accused women.
She told the court the messages called her sister vulgar names. Mr O’Donlainge read some of the messages, which included, “Oh ya, I’m serious, but I promise you she will regret this.” Another said, “The thing crack pip aids the likes of her”.
Ms Faulkner said she rang the older accused to find out what was going on and to get information on Scarlett’s whereabouts, as the family had not seen her for two days. She said Scarlett would “always send a message to say she was okay”.
She said the accused was “shouting” and making “threats” during the call, including “When I get her she’s a dead woman” and “I’m here driving around, and I’m not going to stop until I get your sister”.
The witness said the accused told her Scarlett was living in a trailer with a man. She described asking the accused where this was so her family could find Scarlett “take her away”. The witness said she believed her sister “had gone down a bad road with drugs and was not in the right state of mind”, and that she would not otherwise have been with the man in question.
Ms Faulkner told the court the accused also said Scarlett would be “well off the drugs when she’s on tubes in Cork Hospital”.
The witness told the jury that the accused woman, speaking of her sister, said, “A free prostitute is what she is,”
She said that later on she received further messages asking whether the family had heard from Scarlett, and that the accused said her “whole family” was out looking for her. The court heard that a call between the two women lasted 8 minutes and 4 seconds. The witness said she was on the phone to see whether the accused had heard from Scarlett, and that she did not know what was going on.
Ms Faulkner said the accused later told her she was driving around with her mother and that “one of the women working on the street” had told her “everything”. She said she took this to mean the accused wanted to know where Scarlett was.
In a later, “panicked” call, the accused allegedly told her she should go and check whether her sister was “dead or alive in hospital”, the witness said. She said the accused then told her “It’s him that did it” and hung up.
Ms Faulkner said she rang the regional hospital, and a staff member asked whether she was family and told her Scarlett had just been airlifted there.
“I thought Scarlett had an argument with her or just had a fight,” she said.
She told the court that when she saw her sister, Scarlett was “wrapped in tinfoil”, with “blood coming from her nose, ears and mouth”. She said she could not recall her sister’s hair colour because it looked as if it had been “dipped in blood”, and that she did not recognise her.
“I fell down on my two knees on the ground,” she said.
During cross-examination by Marc Thompson SC, the court heard that the accused woman was interviewed and arrested by gardaí. He said the woman, his client, had offered her condolences and asked her to express them in court again.
It was put to Victoria Faulkner that Scarlett had simply had an argument with the woman and that it was not serious.
Mr Thompson put it to the witness that the accused was “quite prone to shouting, roaring and cursing”. Ms Faulkner said she felt the threats were serious at the time but accepted that she had not reported the matter.
It was put to her that, looking back, they seemed more serious, and she did not dispute this.
When Mr Thompson put it to the witness that the accused had not intended any of this to happen, or intended for Scarlett to die, the prosecution objected to the fairness of the question.
It was then put to her that the accused was angry and embarrassed because the man had cheated on her, but that the older accused “didn’t mean for any of this”.
The court heard that on March 18th, Leanne Greally told Ms Faulkner she had seen Scarlett last on March 15th. She said Scarlett was in a transit van and she did not know who the driver was.
Scarlett’s older sister Louise Faulkner told the court that Scarlett was released from prison on March 12th and came to their parents’ home the next day. She said she spoke to Scarlett by phone and she sounded normal, and she had felt “no worries or concerns” for her.
She said during the call she heard a man say in the background, “Tell her about your new boyfriend,” before the call ended. She later received a call from Victoria to say Scarlett was in hospital, and found she had nine missed calls from the number Scarlett had used.
She also told the jury that between about 5:30 pm and 6:00 pm she had received 9 missed calls from the unrecognised number Scarlett had used to phone her.
On April 13th, Ms Lousie Faulkner confirmed that she had identified her sister’s body to Garda Ashling Murphy.
The trial continues.