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File photo of the Sliabh Liag cliffs in Co Donegal. Alamy Stock Photo

Sliabh Liag trial: Murder accused was 'a bit manic' when she told friend she struck deceased

The court heard that Nikita Burns told gardaí that her co-accused, Alan Vial, had struck the deceased man Robert ‘Robin’ Wilkin six or seven times with a rock.

A WOMAN ACCUSED of murdering a pensioner whose skull was fractured and his body allegedly thrown over Ireland’s tallest cliffs told gardaí she was “a bit manic” and was exaggerating when she told a friend she had hit the deceased over the head.

The trial also heard that Nikita Burns (23) told gardaí that her co-accused, Alan Vial (39), had struck the deceased man Robert ‘Robin’ Wilkin (66) six or seven times with a rock.
She described seeing Vial with the rock in his hand, “smashing it off Robin’s head” while she told him to stop.

She said: “I saw blood going everywhere and Alan just kept hitting him and hitting him and I kept saying, that’s enough.” When Vial stopped, she said, Robert Wilkin was dead and lay slumped between the car seats while Vial drove to the cliffs at Sliabh Liag.

Burns said Vial had suggested they throw Robert Wilkin over the cliff. They drove for 30 minutes and when they got to the top, she said Vial “dragged him [the deceased] over to the fence and pushed him over.”

Burns said she did not get out of the car at Sliabh Liag and did not touch the rock or hit Robert Wilkin at any point.

Nikita Burns, of Carrick, Co Donegal and Alan Vial, of Drumanoo Head, Killybegs, Co Donegal, have pleaded not guilty to the murder of 66-year-old Robert ‘Robin’ Wilkin on 25 June 2023 in Donegal.

Robert Wilkin’s body was found eight days later in the water below the Sliabh Liag cliffs.

Det Gda Patrick Farrell told prosecution counsel Emmet Nolan BL that Burns was arrested on 26 June, the day after the alleged murder, and interviewed three times at Ballyshannon Garda Station.

In her first interview, she said that she and Vial had been “seeing each other” for a few weeks and when asked if they were in love, she replied: “Yeah.”

She had been living at Vial’s five-bedroom house along with Robert Wilkin for about one month. She said she and Vial worked for Robert Wilkin, who was involved in a concrete business.

In her first two interviews, she said she didn’t know what happened to Robert Wilkin, but in her third interview, she told the detectives that Vial killed Robert Wilkin and threw him off a cliff.

She said she had difficulty remembering what happened because she was “really drunk” but she thought she had been in the front passenger seat of a Volkswagen Passat which was being driven by Robert Wilkin.

The two men were fighting, she said, and Robert Wilkin pulled over in an area that she later identified as Roshine in Fintown after gardaí showed her CCTV footage of the Passat’s movements.

She said she remembered seeing Vial with a rock in his hands. “He kept smashing off Robin’s head with it and I told him to stop but he wouldn’t stop,” she said.

Vial struck the deceased six or seven times with the rock, she said, and when he stopped, Robert Wilkin was dead.

She said it was Vial’s idea to put the body over the cliff at Sliabh Liag.

Sharon O’Dowd has previously given evidence that she spoke to Nikita Burns by phone the night after Robert Wilkin’s death.

O’Dowd said Burns told her that she and Vial “beat some man’s head in” so she recorded part of the conversation. Gardaí played the recording to Burns.

Following a five-minute consultation with her solicitor, Burns said: “I was off my head, I was a bit manic and then I over-exaggerated the story because I felt I needed to tell somebody and then I just over-exaggerated. I wanted to protect Alan. I wanted him not to take the fall.”

When asked what specifically she had exaggerated, she said: “I exaggerated that I hit him over the head and dragged his body.”

She denied murdering Robert Wilkin or throwing him over the cliff and said she did not touch the rock or hit the deceased.

She said she returned to Sliabh Liag the following day because Vial wanted to “have a look to make sure the body was not still there”. She said they didn’t see anything so they left.

She further told gardaí that the only reason she cleaned blood from the Passat was that she felt “threatened” after Vial told her he didn’t know what he would do if she didn’t help.

It is the prosecution’s case that the two accused caused Robert Wilkin’s death having engaged in a joint enterprise with the intention to cause serious injury to him.

The jury has been told that where two or more people set out on a criminal enterprise, each one is responsible in law for the actions of the other. The statement of one accused person cannot be used as evidence against the other, the jurors were also told.

The trial will continue next Tuesday before Mr Justice Paul McDermott and a jury of seven women and five men.

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