Mum Googled how to get Irish passport after lover was killed in caravan park shooting
Daisy Donohoe had been accused of helping Jonathan Lawlor after he murdered 35-year-old Sam Petrou at a holiday park in Eastchurch
Daisy Donohoe had been accused of helping Jonathan Lawlor after he murdered 35-year-old Sam Petrou at a holiday park in Eastchurch in the UK.
The victim was found slumped dead on June 11 at Cliff Cottage Chalet Park on the Isle of Sheppey.
Lawlor (42) who was subsequently arrested and charged in connection with Mr Petrou’s death, later died while on remand in prison.
Donohoe stood trial for perverting the course of justice but was cleared by a jury after less than an hour.
According Kent Online, the 36-year-old, of Burnell Avenue, Welling, south east London, booked a hotel for Lawlor after he had twice shot Mr Petrou with a converted blank-firing self-loading pistol.
She had also brought him new clothes but after she was arrested, she denied knowing that her boyfriend, who she had known since early childhood, was responsible for Mr Petrou’s killing.
Officers also found evidence on her phone of internet searches on how to obtain Irish passports and flights to Vietnam.
The court heard she and Lawlor had known each other since she was five years old and had a brief relationship in 2005.
Daisy Donohoe had been accused of helping killer Jonathan Lawlor
During her trial Donohoe claimed that Lawlor had verbally abused and bullied her, would drink and take drugs, and accuse her of cheating during her two-year long relationship.
She also said he would “track” her movements, had headbutted one of her work colleagues at a Christmas party, and even once slapped her because she had had lip filler.
In 2020, Ms Donohoe, a project administrator, wrote to him after finding out he was interned at HMP Standford Hill on the Isle of Sheppey for what she called “nostalgic” reasons.
After Lawlor was moved to an open prison the following year, he and Donohoe rekindled their relationship.
The court heard how 13 months before he was killed, Mr Petrou and Donohoe had taken part in a threesome with Lawlor who was on home leave.
Donohoe described the two men as “friends” and told the court the sex between the three of them had been instigated by Lawlor although it was not what she had wanted.
Donohoe insisted to the court that Lawlor and Mr Petrou, who was from Gillingham, were “fine” after their hook-up and “nothing changed” in the men’s friendship.
However, the jury heard earlier in her trial that in December 2022, Lawlor had shot Mr Petrou with an airgun, and warned that “next time it would be real.”
Mr Petrou, who was nicknamed “Bubble”, was “described by Donohoe as a “nice person and chatty” who she had helped in setting up his construction business.
However, after the incident in December 2022, he avoided Lawlor until they bumped into teach other at The Coppice pub in Eastchurch on June 9 last year.
The two men were captured on CCTV sitting at a garden table where Lawlor had become animated. The next evening Mr Petrou was murdered.
Victim Sam Petrou
DNA on the bullet casings found at the scene matched Lawlor who was also seen fleeing Sheppey in Donohoe’s Jeep with her in the passenger seat.
The court heard police inquiries revealed the couple had stayed at The Shurland Hotel in Eastchurch High Street the night before the shooting.
They then arrived at the Holiday Inn Express in Sittingbourne, just 20 minutes after the killing the following day.
There, she booked two more nights for Lawlor “to give him extra time to sleep”, Donohoe explained, before she went shopping to buy him clothes at his request because “he was in no fit state to go anywhere”.
Despite the extended booking at the Holiday Inn, Lawlor left after one night. He was picked up in a van and driven to London and travelled by train to Newcastle where he was arrested on June 15. The court heard he died in prison in October.
Judge Philip St John-Stevens praised Mr Petrou’s family for their “impeccable behaviour” while hearing evidence about his death.