Kelly-Anne Corcoran was subjected to violence from her husband, Dermot McArdle, but stayed because she loved him, said Caroline Moran, Kelly-Anne's sister. She said there were "signs of violence" in the relationship and McArdle was aggressive with Kelly-Anne. Caroline Moran said that he sometimes pulled her hair and hit her.
"Kelly-Anne always obeyed him, she did it for a quiet life," Ms Moran said. "She loved Dermot, she was prepared to take it." McArdle denies throwing his wife of five years from the balcony of their Spanish hotel room on February 11, 2000. In an emotional address, Caroline Moran told the court of an incident after her sister's death when she was shopping with a friend in Drogheda and they picked up the accused's children in the car. While they were driving and talking, she said: "Mark [the couple's son] got very distressed and annoyed in himself and then Mark said: 'Daddy is a bold boy, Daddy hit Mammy and pushed Mammy down'.
"I didn't know what to think, I didn't know what happened," Ms Moran said. "I still don't know what happened, eight years later. I want justice for Kelly-Anne, I want to know what happened to her, why she came to Spain on a holiday and never came home." She also said her family had to "fight and plead" with McArdle to be allowed see Kelly-Anne in the coffin. Asked about the defendant's attitude after his wife's death, she said: "I never seen him cry, he showed no emotion, no feelings, no love towards Kelly-Anne." Ms Moran said at the funeral, she put her hand on her sister's head in the coffin and the accused came over and said: "get your effing hand off her head". She said when the accused gave her a prayer to say at the mass, he told her: "If you are going to cry, don't do it, I'll get someone else." In cross-examination, she said the couple were "very tight for money" as they were building a new house. Brigid Lowndes, another sister, told the court Kelly-Anne came to her house one night after a row with the defendant. She showed up in her nightdress, a jacket and no shoes. Ms Lowndes said at the funeral, she was putting a card into the coffin in memory of her other sister Kathy who died in a car accident, when the accused asked her: "what the f**k are you doing?" One night when they met, the accused told Ms Lowndes he was buying a new BMW. "I said why and he said it's what Kelly-Anne would have wanted," she told the court. She said McArdle was "drinking and partying" at the funeral and showed no emotion. Maria Nolan, a friend of Kelly-Anne, said she thought the accused had been "very domineering". Asked if Kelly-Anne ever displayed suicidal behaviour, she said: "absolutely not". She was shocked the accused became "so involved with a new car" after his wife's death. Peter Moran, Kelly-Anne's brother-in-law, said at the hospital in Malaga the accused told him that, "Kelly-Anne did not mean it and that she threw herself over the balcony."
When the couple's child Mark said, "Daddy pushed Mammy," Mr Moran "was confused" and "didn't know whether Dermot was right and the child had misunderstood.
"I phoned Dermot McArdle a couple of weeks later and asked him to explain it to the family. He said to me I am not f**king telling those people, he said you tell them," Mr Moran said. Earlier the court had heard dramatic evidence as five words, uttered by a child hung in the air: "Daddy bold, Daddy pushed Mammy." A hushed Spanish court heard that Mark McArdle, aged just four at the time, spoke these words days after his mother Kelly-Anne's fatal plunge from a Costa del Sol hotel balcony. Members of the Corcoran family and their friends also described the accused as "aggressive" towards his wife during their marriage and unemotional after her death. They alleged he at first said Kelly-Anne "threw herself" off the balcony, then gave different versions of what happened on the night of her fall. McArdle, of Haggardstown, Dundalk, denies murdering his wife Kelly-Anne (28) at the four-star Don Pepe hotel in Marbella, insisting it was an accident. She was rushed to hospital after the horrific plunge but died the following day
