A Dublin scrap collector is awaiting sentence after he admitted possessing 136 kegs of stolen Guinness and other beer belonging to Diageo Ireland.
Patrick Devoy had pleaded not guilty to stealing the beer worth €23,120 from Shannon Transport Logistics, Ballymount on December 6, 2011.
The 52-year-old, of Church View, Church Street, Finglas had also denied presenting a fake cheque at the Diageo offices on James Street on the same date for the purpose of collecting the beer.
His trial at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court collapsed last April after two jurors were overheard discussing the case on a bus and the jury was discharged.
However before a second trial got underway, Devoy pleaded guilty to the lesser offence of possessing stolen goods.
Garda Fiona Morrisson told James Dwyer BL, prosecuting, that a man arrived at the Diageo offices on the quays and placed an order for kegs for delivery to The Belfry pub in Stoneybatter, which he said was due to reopen.
The order was for 75 kegs of Guinness, 11 kegs of Smithwicks, 25 kegs of Budweiser and 25 of Carlsberg lager.
Devoy presented what appeared to be a cheque for €23,120 to Diageo and then drove to the Shannon Transport Logistics depot in Ballymount to collect the kegs.
Glen Mitchell, a forklift driver from Shannon Transport Logistics, said Devoy arrived in a flat back truck and handed him his docket for the order.
Mr Mitchell said he helped transfer the first of three loads of kegs onto Devoy’s truck, but became suspicious of the quick turnaround time it was taking him to get to and from the Belfry Pub in Stoneybatter.
Later that day, a second man arrived at the Diageo premises with the same type of cheque that Devoy had presented.
He was intoxicated and said he was also collecting beer for the Belfry pub.
Security was called and it emerged that both cheques were fake and that the Belfry pub had not in fact reopened.
Devoy was arrested and told gardaí he had been carrying out what he thought was a legitimate delivery.
He said he had got a phone call and met a man he didn’t know outside the Belfry pub who gave him an envelope with the cheque and details of the beer order.
He said he was offered €150 and that he didn’t keep any of the kegs.
“I just collected and delivered them,” he said.
Olan Callinan BL, defending, said there was a “third party behind the scenes pulling the strings” and that his client had been “used”.
“He didn’t know that what he had done was wrong, but he was reckless. He ought to have known,” he said.
Mr Callinan said Devoy had signed his own name on the docket at Ballymount and was aware that CCTV cameras were in operation there and at the Diageo plant.
Devoy told gardaí that when he got the call he thought it “a bit strange” at first because he thought Guinness delivered, but that the man told him he was to collect the kegs.
“I told him I didn’t think my lorry would be suitable as I’d never collected stuff like that. I collect scrap,” he said.
The court heard that Devoy has seven previous convictions, including one for theft relating to a scrap collection, and another for a public order offence in 2008.
Devoy had four children, but two of his sons died tragically in their teens and early twenties from muscular dystrophy.
Devoy was the formal carer of these two ill children between 2001 and 2011.
He worked as a milkman for Premier Dairies for a number of years before setting up his own milkround for 17 years.
Mr Callinan said Devoy and his wife had suffered a great deal of trauma and tragedy and that he was “obviously a family man” with a very good work history.
Judge Patricia Ryan adjourned the matter for sentencing on May 2.
She ordered a probation and welfare report to be prepared.