THE FAMILY of a Dublin woman murdered by her husband at their home in Castleknock two years ago has spoken of how the couple had been in a deeply troubled and abusive marriage for a decade before he stabbed her to death.
David Bourke (49) was last March given a life sentence for murdering Jean Gilbert (45) in front of their three children at Laverna Dale, Castleknock, Co Dublin, on August 28th, 2007.
Just months before she was killed, Ms Gilbert told her family that she was “living a lie”.
Speaking for the first time about Ms Gilbert’s death since her husband was convicted, they say as “far back as 1997 an incident occurred that marked the beginning of a frightful time for her”.
They do not reveal details of what happened out of a desire to protect her children, whom they are raising. However, they say that in the summer in which she was to die, Ms Gilbert told her immediate family her marriage was over.
She arrived at her parents’ house pale and extremely thin. She started by saying: “This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I am fed up living a lie that everything is all right when it’s not.”
Bourke, who stabbed her to death in front of their three children, was not the kind of loving husband he portrayed himself to be, the family says. The Gilberts told The Irish Times of their distress at how Ms Gilbert has been depicted in the media since her husband was found guilty of her murder at the end of March.
During his trial, Bourke claimed that theirs had been an “ordinary marriage”, and that he had been provoked to murder by his wife’s recent affair with British musician Robert Campion. The Gilbert family refute this, saying: “David Bourke was not the man he claimed to be, and Jean was certainly not the woman that David Bourke would like to portray.”
The Gilberts also reject the picture of Jean which emerged in the press, both in its reporting of the trial and in speculative commentaries since. “Jean was a loving, kind and responsible person who loved her children deeply. The fact that she was contemplating leaving the family home – which, incidentally, she had bought before she met David Bourke – shows how unbearable the situation had become for her.”
Ms Gilbert had also confided in close friends that she was “suffering” in her marriage. One of them, Máirín Ní Bhriain, telephoned the hospital when she heard on a news bulletin that a woman had been murdered in Castleknock, in order to find out if it was Jean Gilbert. A nurse confirmed it was. Ms Gilbert had told friends she was leaving the marriage. Another friend, Fionnuala Halpin, had warned her that this was the time most abused women were killed by their spouses.
