A 23-year-old woman, accused of perjury which led to the collapse of a murder trial in 2003, has been given 100 hours of community service.
Amanda McNamara, the mother of a young child and originally from the Lee Estate in Limerick, was due to be one of the key witnesses in the murder trial of Liam Keane in the Central Criminal Court in October 2003.
She had given a number of statements to gardaí identifying Keane as the killer of Eric Leamy who was stabbed to death during a fight in Limerick in August 2001.
But after taking the oath at that trial, she then claimed that she remembered nothing of the night of the murder, because she was a drug addict and an alcoholic and that all she knew about that night was what she had heard from others.
As a result of this action by her and others the murder trial collapsed.
She subsequently admitted that she had lied, had never been a drug addict, and that she was motivated by fear for herself, her child and her family.
There was evidence that she had been intimidated a number of times by Liam Keane and that her father, a taxi driver, had been intimidated by the late crime boss Kieran Keane, Liam Keane’s uncle.
Judge Carroll Moran said this was a very serious matter as perjury serves to undermine Ireland's system of criminal justice.
And he said her evidence would have been compelling and useful in that murder trial.
He said he felt the appropriate sentence was six months, but that she serve it by means of community service of 100 hours.
A second witness who refused to give evidence at the same trial has been given 150 hours of community service.
