Edna Lillis, who met and befriended Elaine O'Hara at St Edmundsbury Hospital in 2007, told the Central Criminal Court that on the last occasion she had met her, which was around the end of 2011, Ms O'Hara had shown her cuts on her stomach.
Ms O’Hara had told her she had met someone on the internet and she was having “some sort of relationship with him where he cut her”.
“She explained to me how she got them before she showed me them,” she said. “They were recent cuts,” she said.
Ms Lillis said the cuts were 3-4 inches long.
Ms O’Hara had explained she had met someone on the internet and that “he liked to cut her”.
“She was having some sort of relationship with him where he cut her.”
Ms Lillis said she told Ms O’Hara she was playing a dangerous game. “Elaine just wanted to be loved. She just wanted some attention. I told her to keep notes of her meetings with this person and she said she was keeping notes.”
Ms Lillis was giving evidence in the trial of Graham Dwyer (42), an architect from Kerrymount Close in Foxrock, who is charged with murdering Ms O’Hara, then aged 36, on August 22nd, 2012.
He has pleaded not guilty.
Ms Lillis also said Ms O’Hara had told her that she had never gotten over the loss of her mother. She had also liked St Edmundsbury Hospital as she “felt secure there”.
In cross examination, Ms Lillis said Ms O’Hara had “enjoyed being hurt”.
Questioned by Ronan Kennedy for the defence, Ms Lillis said Ms O'Hara had not been afraid of the man she was involved with at that time they last spoke.
“She wasn’t afraid of him at the time but she was wary of him because she knew she was playing a dangerous game and she knew there were repercussions to it. I asked her would she tell the counsellor about it and she said no, she wasn’t going to.”
Ms Lillis said she did not know whether Ms O’Hara had told her the name of the person she was seeing but she knew he was an architect.
“For some reason I had (the name) Peter in my head,” she said.
Describing how Ms O’Hara dressed, Ms Lillis said she used to wear tracksuit bottoms and t-shirts “all the time”.
“She never dressed up. She was quite boyish,” she said.
She also always wore runners.
Asked whether Ms O’Hara had had any financial difficulties, Ms Lillis said she had not. She had never borrowed money from her and always seemed to have money for her cigarettes. Ms Lillis said she believed this was because Ms O’Hara had two jobs.
Maria Hynes, who was also a patient at St Edmundsbury Hospital, told the court she would often meet Ms O’Hara in the smoking room.
“Elaine was always happy and chatty,” she said. “She always seemed to be in good form when I saw her.”
Ms Hynes had met Ms O’Hara the night before her discharge from hospital and on that morning, August 22nd.
She said Ms O’Hara had been happy as she was “really looking forward” to doing her voluntary work with the Tall Ships festival.
But on the night before she was discharged Ms O’Hara had also asked her how she would “commit suicide”.
These were not issues patients ever discussed between themselves, the court heard.
Ms Hynes said Ms O’Hara had continued to tell her how she would kill herself and described having a rope either in her wardrobe or in the vicinity of it. “She said she had it for quite a long time.”
Before she left on the morning of August 22nd, Ms O’Hara had come into Ms Hynes’s room and was “in great form”.
“I gave her a big hug and off she went.”
She had been with the doctor and was looking forward to heading out, but might also have been “a little bit apprehensive”, Ms Hynes said.
Under cross examination, Ms Hynes agreed she had not wanted to entertain the discussion about suicide. But she agreed Ms O’Hara had gone on to discuss very specific details.
The court also heard evidence from Rosetta Callan, who was a nurse at St Edmundsbury at the time of Ms O'Hara's last admission in July and August 2012.
She said she had a conversation with Ms O’Hara on the night before she was discharged on August 22nd, 2012. Ms Callan had been working nights.
She had known Ms O’Hara “fairly well”, she said. On that occasion, it was about 11pm and Ms O’Hara had been “kind of quiet”.
“She said, ‘I’m just pissed off’.”
Ms O’Hara had started telling her about a man she had met but had not told her his name. She had said they both had an interest in bondage.
Ms Callan said she knew where Ms O’Hara had lived and that she had told her the man she had met lived “nearby”. She had said he was a “neighbour” and that she passed the house every day.
Elaine O’Hara had said the man had a key to her apartment and Ms Callan had asked her why she did not go to gardaí if he was “harassing her”.
Ms O’Hara had said it was because the man had young children. “She loved kids so she would not like to harm them by going to the guards.”
Ciara Ní Dubhlaing, a pharmacist at St Patrick’s, which also deals with medication for St Edmundsbury Hospital, was shown a bag of medication which she agreed had been prescribed for Ms O’Hara.
Tablets included anti-depressants, a drug for treating asthma, another for treating anxiety and nerve pain, cholesterol medication and an anti-spasmodic.
Ms O’Hara’s handbag, which also contained a number of medications, including over-the-counter remedies, was also produced to the court.
Ms Ní Dubhlaing agreed under cross examination that patients were not issued with medication on leaving the hospital but were given prescriptions for their own pharmacist.