A MAN who bought a rabbit for his children at a local market just after selling 121 cases of stolen wine has been ordered to carry out community service in lieu of a two-year sentence.
Paul Richardson (25), Greenfort Crescent, Clondalkin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to theft of wine worth €9,171 from United Beverages Limited; unlawfully taking possession of a vehicle; and driving without insurance on August 12th, 2007.
Richardson had worked casually for a haulage company which hired trucks in the industrial estate in which United Beverages was located. He used one of the vehicles to load crates of wine and remove them from the yard.
He was easily identified by his employer from CCTV footage of the theft, driving into the yard before loading and driving away.
Richardson immediately admitted the theft after his employer rang him and asked him whether he took the cases. He also apologised for “causing trouble”.
Judge Katherine Delahunt noted from Richardson’s 33 previous convictions that he had been disqualified from driving at the time, which he had “ignored”.
She sentenced him to 240 hours of community service, to be completed within 12 months, and ordered him to repay United Beverages €4,000 within three years. Richardson was also disqualified from driving for two years.
She called it a “very strange set of circumstances”, and said “the whole endeavour doesn’t even seem to have been planned”. It was “a far from sophisticated crime” and a gross breach of trust.
It was “one of the those unusual cases where the interests of the community would not be best served by you serving a custodial sentence”, she said. Det Garda Leanna Cruise told Gerardine Small, prosecuting, that a United Beverages worker noticed some stock was missing. CCTV footage was viewed where Richardson could been seen loading two pallets of stock on to a rental truck.
Richardson was arrested and was very co-operative with gardaí. He said he sold the wine “to a fella” for €2,500 in cash. He had been let go by the haulage firm the previous week and the estate security man knew him from being in the yard every day.
Det Garda Cruise agreed with Dean Kelly, defending, that the truck was returned immediately after Richardson used it.