A 41-year-old man has been sentenced to nine months in jail after he was convicted of stealing €700 from a 97-year-old man when he duped the pensioner into handing over the cash so he could check it to make sure the money wasn’t counterfeit.
John “Buddy” O’Brien, a native of Clash Road, Abbeyfeale, Co Limerick but with an address at Barrack Street, Waterford, had denied charges of stealing €700 from Dr Jack Burke and impersonating a member of An Garda Síochána at O’Keeffe’s SuperValu car park in Newmarket, Co Cork on January 19th, 2017.
But following a near four-hour hearing at Mallow District Court, Judge Brian Sheridan dismissed the impersonation case against O’Brien, saying he had a doubt, but found that the State had proved the theft case against O’Brien and he sentenced him to nine months in jail.
Dr Burke, now aged 99, told the court that he had gone to do his shopping at SuperValu on the day in question and as he was walking from his car towards rear shop entrance, a man drove into the car park in a dark-coloured car and beckoned him to approach him.
“As I passed he said he wanted to see me for a minute – he said there was some trouble with notes – he said he was a policeman and he showed me an identification document and a badge,” said Dr Burke, adding he couldn’t remember exactly whether the man said he was a policeman or a bank official.
“He asked me had I any notes on me because there were a lot of forged notes going around . . . I took out €700 that I had on me – €700 in €50s and a couple of €20s and he said he wanted to take a look at them to see if they were forged notes and the minute he got them in his hands, he was gone.”
The man was well dressed, wearing a tweed jacket, grey shirt and tie and was in his mid-40s and of stocky build with dark hair and was well spoken, said Dr Burke. He told defence barrister, Eugene Manley BL there was no violence or threat of violence.
Det Garda Padraig Reddington said the matter was reported to gardaí and he downloaded CCTV footage from SuperValu which captured the incident but was not of sufficient quality to allow gardaí identify the thief or the number plates on his car, but they were able to identify the car as a Volvo S40.
He ran a check on black Volvo S40s on the Garda PULSE system and saw that a Volvo S40 Registration Number 03 D 23561 had been sold by a John Kelsall in Cobh on January 10th, 2017 to a John Breen of Barrett Street in Waterford so he asked a colleague, Garda Nicole Loughnane to interview Mr Kelsall.
Mr Kelsall said he advertised the car on January 10th and he got a call from a man whom he met and told him he was a John Breen from Barrack Street in Waterford and he filled in his details on the car logbook before selling it to him for €500.
Det Garda Reddington said that when he checked for a John Breen of Barrett Street in Waterford, he found that there was no such address but he noticed there was a Barrack Street and that O’Brien lived there with his partner at a house number that was very similar to the address he gave for Barrett Street.
Mr Kelsall said he couldn’t remember the number that the man had rung him on as he had since changed phones but Garda Loughnane told the court she met Mr Kelsall on January 24th and he showed her his phone and she took down the number of the mobile which the man had used to contact him,
Det Garda Reddington said that when he got the mobile phone number from Garda Loughnane, he gave it to Garda Mike Thompson of the Garda Electronic Crime Investigation Unit and he in turn found it was a pre-paid unregistered burner phone and that the owner could not be traced.
However, Garda Thompson told the court he checked with the service provider and found the last three places where it had been topped up – Egars Newsagents in Killarney on January 27th, Kirwans Pharmacy in Kilmacthomas, Co Waterford on February 2nd and Corrib Oil in Gort, Co Galway on February 8th.
He was able to obtain CCTV footage of the phone owner buying credit in both Egars Newsagents on January 27th and Corrib Oil on February 8th and Det Garda Reddington said that he recognised the man on the CCTV footage buying the phone credit as O’Brien whom he had known for about 10 years.
Det Garda Reddington said that he checked with Garda colleagues and also found CCTV footage of O’Brien at a garage in Leamybrien, Co Waterford on January 16th, 2017, three days before the incident, and a fast food restaurant in Ballincollig on January 23rd, 2017, four days after the incident.
In both the Ballincollig and Killarney footage, O’Brien was wearing a tweed jacket and shirt while on the Leamybrien footage he was wearing a tweed jacket, shirt and tie, all of which were in keeping with the description given by Dr Burke of the man who stole his money.
Garda Thompson said that when he checked the phone activity on January 19th, the day of the incident, he found it was in Kilcummin which was en route between Killarney and north Cork at 11.31am and there was no activity on it then until 17.54 when it pinged at a mast in Roxboro in Limerick.
Det Garda Reddington said the S40 Volvo had been seized by gardaí in Cork city on March 18th, 2017 and he asked forensic examiner, Garda John Forde to take photos of the car and when he compared the photos with the CCTV footage, he noticed striking resemblance between the two images of the car.
The insurance and tax disc holders were not tight into the corner of the windscreen, while the car in both the photos and the CCTV footage had the same metal alloy wheels and the same cream trim interior and although he couldn’t see the car registration on the CCTV, he believed it was one and the same vehicle.
Cross-examined by Mr Manley, Det Garda Reddington agreed it was impossible to identify the driver of the Volvo from the CCTV footage from SuperValu in Newmarket or to identify the car registration number but the location of the insurance and tax discs, alloy wheels and trim matched the Volvo bought by O’Brien.
Mr Manley said that there had to be serious doubts about the identification of his client, but Insp Tony O’Sullivan said that while he accepted Dr Burke was confused about whether the man said he was a garda or a bank official, he believed there was enough evidence to convict O’Brien of the theft charge.
Judge Sheridan said that he agreed with Mr Manley that the State did not prove its case on the impersonation charge but he believed the State had done enough to prove its case on the theft charge and he duly convicted O’Brien of stealing €700 from Dr Burke.
Det Garda Reddington told the court that O’Brien had a total of 109 previous convictions, including five for theft, 23 for larceny as well as four for impersonating a garda and Judge Sheridan sentenced him to nine months in jail and fixed recognisances in the event of an appeal.
