Mother-of-one saved as gun against head was jammed

A MOTHER-OF-ONE has said that someone must have been looking over her the day that her ex-boyfriend’s gun repeatedly jammed as he tried to shoot her in the face.

Gerard Mooney, 39, with a previous address in Castlerea, Co. Roscommon, broke into his ex-girlfriend’s home with a shotgun because she had broken up with him, the Central Criminal Court heard yesterday.

The father-of-three had pleaded guilty to the attempted murder of Stephanie Clifton, 28, on February 12, 2017 at Cartron, Co. Roscommon.

He also pleaded guilty to committing burglary on that date, and to harassing Ms Clifton in the week before he broke in.

Ms Clifton went to stay with her cousin in Cartron that weekend after Mooney called her 273 times on February 11 and 12. She woke up at 7.30am on February 12 to find the accused standing over her. He pulled her out of bed and assaulted her.

He left after the assault and Ms Clifton called gardaí.

‘We were en route to the initial call to the assault when we got a further call to say he’d returned to the house and a shot had been discharged,’ recalled Garda Fergal Reynolds.

Mooney fired a shot through the glass part of the door, and went inside. He walked to the bedroom with a sawn-off shotgun, brought Ms Clifton to the kitchen and pointed the gun at her head.

He pulled the trigger a number of times but it didn’t fire, and tried multiple times to re-load it before leaving. Gardaí were there by the time the accused made his next threats to his victim, this time in a phone call.

He was found that evening hiding in a wardrobe in a friend’s house in Castlerea. He denied everything.

‘I think that someone must have been looking over me that day, as the bullets kept jamming, despite him reloading,’ she said.

She said that her daughter said her worst fear was now ‘that my mummy would be killed’. He will be sentenced on January 18.