Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
CONTROL FREAK MANIPULATED HIS FAMILY:
Mum & sister reveal the danger signs of psycho’s shock behaviour Brute walked wife up & down aisle and picked bridesmaid dress
ALAN Hawe was a passiveaggressive controller and his desire to influence people around him was building in the months before he murdered his family.
Tragically, the more commanding he became the less obvious it appeared to those around him.
But this leaning towards stealth dictatorship was not new for Hawe.
His yearning for supremacy ended in a final act in August 2016 when he took his own life so not to face shame or justice for killing his wife Clodagh and sons, Liam, Niall and Ryan.
It is only with hindsight Clodagh’s mum Mary Coll and sister Jacqueline Connolly have been able to pinpont the danger signs where Hawe had tried to take command.
The women recall how Hawe:
■ Demanded to join Clodagh and Jacqueline bridesmaid dress shopping,
■ Walked Clodagh up and down the aisle at their wedding,
■ Rearranged and re-pegged laundry on the washing line to his standards
■ Took over simple cooking tasks he was dissatisfied with, and
■ Commanded attention with silence by standing in the doorway.
Jacqueline explained the couple’s relationship was “all consuming” and she rarely saw Clodagh alone.
She added: “One of the last conversations I had with Clodagh, I pulled up to the house and was delighted he wasn’t there because we had a lovely chat.
“It was the last I had with Clodagh a few days before everything happened.
“I do remember once saying to Clodagh she had changed. She used to go out for a few drinks and he didn’t drink so she stopped drinking and changed in that perspective. Then it seemed wherever she was, he was.”
Mary said she would only see her daughter with Hawe on Wednesdays when she came to collect her oldest son. She added: “They were always together. If we sat having a cup of tea he would sit until I’d go.
“We never really got time to have a conversation together. I knew if I told Clodagh something she’d tell him.” Even in the months prior to their wedding, Hawe demanded to accompany Clodagh and her sister on their trip to pick Jacqueline’s bridesmaid’s dress. She explained: “I had this feeling he was going to be there. I met Clodagh and there he was. I said, ‘Well Alan, we’ll see you later when we’re finished’. “He said, ‘Oh no, I’m coming with you’. I said, ‘I can’t try on dresses in front of you’.
“I said to Clodagh, ‘When you’re ready to do this, just the two of us, we’ll do it together’. I felt unease that he was coming along. There was a control element around it I wasn’t comfortable with.” When Clodagh’s wedding day arrived, Hawe ensured he walked her up and down the aisle.
Mary said: “I kind of felt a bit put out but I didn’t give it much thought because Clodagh was happy to do it that way. They were madly in love.
“She was only 17 when she met Alan Hawe. She started teacher training college at Drumcondra and he started college. They were both living on campus in separate houses and on Valentine’s night he said, ‘You know I will look after you’.
“They were going out together about two-and-a-half years and got married in the church at the college shortly after they graduated.”
Mary now believes Hawe was a coercive controller. She said: “He had
this silent presence, he could stand five foot away but you’d know he was in control. He mightn’t raise his voice but as soon as he said jump, the boys would jump. He was strict, very strict.
Jacqueline told how the boys loved their dad, adding: “He was never anything but a good father in their eyes. He never raised a hand to them until the night he killed them.”
After the murder-suicide Hawe ensured his controlling ways would continue after his death.
He logged into the family bank accounts and moved cash to a solo one in his name.
Hawe left instructions for their cars, jewellery, photos, money boxes and even a tin used to keep the kids’ football club money.
Jacqueline said: “About half two that morning, he transferred about €2,500 from the joint account to his own account. At that point he was a criminal and then he was fraudulently transferring money.
“Then he put the note on the back door and he laid Clodagh’s jewellery on the bed upstairs. He told us not to mess up our lives, in particular me and his two brothers.”
Mary added: “He gave instructions of what we were to do.
“The documents in the folders were very important, they were all documents relating to their bank statements, their mortgage, all the financial stuff. He said, ‘Give Mary Clodagh’s jewellery and her handbag’.
The family believe the level of control and savagery shown by Hawe was not triggered by depression.
Jacqueline said: “You’d never think in a million years a man like that could commit such brutality and evil. It wasn’t coincidence he did it before he was about to return to school.
“We believe he was avoiding the consequences of something he was doing at work. He rang the INTO, we don’t know why, whether it was for a grievance or for representation.
“We know he had conflict with a colleague. We know he said in his letter the truth was going to come out and he’d thought about taking his own life but he didn’t want to be left retarded or worse – Clodagh finding out the truth and we don’t know what that truth is.
“We have asked for the file of the investigation from the gardai, but we’ve been refused that.”
Jacqueline is adamant Hawe was not suffering depression.
She said: “Nothing in this country is going to change if we just throw a blanket on the inquest, a blanket of depression, and Clodagh, Liam, Niall and Ryan, their file is in a filing cabinet and we still don’t know why.”
Mary added while Hawe took command of his family, she and Jacqueline continue to be controlled by their decency.
She said: “It’s not easy to sit and talk about this but we feel people need to be aware of the truth. We need answers to the questions. He was caught, who caught him? What was he doing? Why did he feel the need to wipe out his family? What was so bad that he was doing?”