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Scarlett Faulkner, a 28-year-old mother of one from County Tipperary, was allegedly hunted down and struck up to eleven times on the head with a 63cm metal pole at Birdhill on 21 March 2026, the Central Criminal Court heard on Tuesday, 3 November 2026. Ms Faulkner died at Cork University Hospital on 13 April 2026, three weeks after the alleged attack. A 41-year-old woman and a 17-year-old girl, who cannot be identified because she is a minor, both deny murdering Ms Faulkner. The teenager has pleaded not guilty to murder but guilty to manslaughter.
Prosecution Opens Joint Enterprise Case- Seoirse Ó Dúnlaing SC, prosecuting, told a jury of eight men and four women that the State's case is that both accused acted in a joint enterprise to kill or cause serious harm to Ms Faulkner after discovering she had begun a relationship with the older accused's former partner. Daily Dazzling Dawn understands the prosecution will rely heavily on dashcam and mobile phone footage recovered during the Garda investigation.
Mr Ó Dúnlaing said the older woman spent a full day searching for Ms Faulkner and her new partner before spotting him driving a Ford Transit van. Counsel told the court the van was rammed off the road at Birdhill in an incident captured on dashcam. Ms Faulkner got out of the vehicle and encountered the younger accused, who struck her ten or eleven times on the head with the metal bar, the jury heard.
"That bar is of significant enough weight that to wield it in the manner she did, she could only have been using ferocious force," Mr Ó Dúnlaing said. He told the jury that as the younger accused struck the blows, the older woman was involved in an engagement with her former partner, and that she later approached and brought her co-accused back to their vehicle.
The 41-year-old has pleaded not guilty to murder. She also denies burglary, entering a building as a trespasser and criminal damage at an address in County Tipperary on 20 March 2026, and a further count of burglary and assault causing harm at an address in County Limerick on 21 March 2026. Mr Ó Dúnlaing told the jury the prosecution must prove that at the time of the alleged attack by the teenager, her co-accused shared the same intention to kill or cause serious harm.
Alleged Messages Read to the Jury- Victoria Faulkner, the deceased's younger sister, told the court that Scarlett was the second youngest of sixteen children and had been released from a three-month prison sentence on 15 March 2026. She said she saw her sister shortly after that release, and that it was the last time she saw her alive.
Victoria Faulkner agreed her sister was having difficulty with drugs and became concerned when Scarlett stopped contacting the family, which was unlike her. After she posted on Facebook on 20 March that her sister was missing, she said she received a series of messages and calls from the 41-year-old accused, who alleged Scarlett was living with her husband and used a string of derogatory terms.
One message shown to the jury read: "Your smell bag of a sister will pay for what she done when I get her I'll draw a map of Ireland on her face." A second stated: "I promise you she will regret this." Victoria Faulkner said the woman told her she was driving around looking for Scarlett and would not stop "until I get your sister and when I get her she is a dead woman."
She told the court she replied that her sister had gone down a bad road with drugs, that this was the only reason she would be with the woman's husband, and that she would not have done so in her right mind. The accused later messaged that Scarlett would be "well off the drugs when she is coming off the tubes in Cork hospital", which Victoria Faulkner said she understood as a reference to a serious injuries unit rather than the family's local hospital.
Sister Describes Final Call and Hospital Identification- Victoria Faulkner told the Central Criminal Court that the accused later telephoned her, her voice sounding "panicky", and said: "You'd want to go and check if your whore of a sister is dead or alive up in the hospital." When she asked who had done it, she said the woman replied "he did it" and the call ended.
She described falling to her knees on seeing her sister at Limerick University Hospital before her transfer to Cork. "She was wrapped in foil, there was blood from her nose, her ears, her mouth. I could not tell the colour of her hair," she said. "I kept asking where is my sister and the nurses said they had told me three times that was her."
Defence Characterises Messages as Idle Threats- Under cross-examination by Mark Thompson, defending the 41-year-old, Victoria Faulkner agreed she had not contacted An Garda Síochána after receiving the messages. She said she instead called older siblings because they intended to find Scarlett and take her away from the man.
Mr Thompson put it to the witness that his client was a woman known to shout and curse, that she did not mean any of it and never intended Ms Faulkner to die. He said she was angry and was "throwing idle threats left, right and centre". He told the court his client had expressed condolences when arrested by gardaí and had asked him to repeat them in court.
A second sister, Louise Faulkner, said she received a brief call from Scarlett on 21 March during which her sister sounded normal, and that the call ended after a male voice in the background shouted: "tell her about your new boyfriend." She later logged nine missed calls from the same number, was informed her sister was in hospital, and on 13 April identified Scarlett's body to gardaí.
Axe Footage and Torn Keepsakes Shown to Jury- The jury was shown photographs taken during the Garda investigation, including damaged vehicles, metal bars and a bat. Items seized during searches of the 41-year-old's home were also displayed, among them wedding photographs, a birthday card and a credit union book, all of which had been torn up.
Mr Ó Dúnlaing said mobile phone footage would show the older accused holding an axe and damaging a caravan, and that she had attended two properties in the days before the Birdhill incident looking for Ms Faulkner and her partner. Counsel told the jury Ms Faulkner "had her own personal issues" and had been taking crack cocaine at a premises.
The trial continues before Mr Justice Kerida Naidoo and is expected to last approximately four weeks, concluding around 30 November 2026. The jury must decide whether the older accused was party to a joint enterprise with the teenager at the time of the fatal assault, and whether the teenager is guilty of murder or manslaughter.
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