THE mother of a five year old Irish girl yesterday accused her former boyfriend of abducting and murdering her daughter. Ms Josie Mahon (27) pointed at Mr Andrew Pountley (32) in the dock at Manchester Crown Court and said: `How can you sit there and say you are not guilty when you know you've done it, don't you?"
Mr Pountley, a pub disc jockey, is alleged to have taken Rosemary McCann from her bed as she slept at her home in Kipling Road, Oldham, Greater Manchester, in a drunken act of revenge against Ms Mahon, with whom he had argued earlier in the evening.
The prosecution says he took the girl to his home a mile away where he raped her before suffocating her and dumping her body in an alley 200 yards away.
Mr Pountley, of Kew Road, Oldham, has pleaded not guilty, to abducting, raping and murdering Rosemary.
Ms Mahon said that she and Mr Pountley had lived together at his home, but she had moved out after he became fiercely jealous and violent towards her. They had resumed their relationship and he would stay regularly at her house.
On the evening before Rosemary's disappearance she had arranged to go with her nephew and his girlfriend to a nearby pub where Mr Pountley was working. When they arrived Mr Pountley was abusive to her and asked where she had been. "He said: `You'll be sorry. You're dead, you prostitute. You're going to be sorry'," she said.
Ms Mahon said Mr Pountley had asked if she wanted to go back to his house, but because he was in a bad mood she refused. Ms Mahon said that Mr Pountley had then told her: "I'm going to phone in 10 minutes. If you are not there in 10 minutes, you'll be sorry'."
Ms Mahon said that when she and her nephew, Martin Joyce, and his girlfriend, Victoria Shea, returned home she went upstairs and checked that the children were asleep. The three of them then left and went to a neighbour's, taking some beer with them. Ms Mahon said the children were only alone for a few minutes because Ms Shea returned to the house feeling unwell.
"I left the door closed, but unlocked," she said.
They returned home at about 2.20 a.m., when she went upstairs and found Rosemary's bed empty.
The trial was adjourned until today.