Killer gang 'enjoyed it' - widow

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A widow has told a court the gang who beat and hacked her husband to death "were enjoying every minute of it".

John Mongan was killed with a hatchet and bats in front of his seven-year-old daughter and nine-months pregnant wife, Julia, in February 2008

Mr Mongan was attacked in the bedroom of his Fallswater Street home in west Belfast.

Christopher Stokes, 34, Edward Gabriel Stokes, 38, and a 16-year-old boy who cannot be identified, deny his murder.

Earlier Mrs Mongan admitted that she had lied to police in the immediate aftermath of the murder.

Under cross-examination from defence lawyer Philip Magee, Mrs Mongan admitted she told police her husband's killers had been wearing balaclavas when in fact, they had not.

She told the court this was because she believed her husband John was still alive and because: "I wasn't sure what John would want me to say - I didn't want him getting any more trouble from that family, he was petrified of them".

It was also put to Mrs Mongan that she only named the three defendants as the killers after she had spoken to her brother-in-law and her father but she claimed she had only had "brief conversations" with each man to tell them what had happened to John.

Mrs Mongan denied being told to put their names into the frame, declaring: "I seen the three faces of the three people I know in front of me beating my husband.

"I wasn't thinking about improving the case, I'm telling the truth and it's up to you to believe it."

The trial continues.