A former drug addict who was given a chance to become a motor mechanic after she told her story on the Marian Finucane radio show was yesterday jailed for eight months for a series of larcenies committed just days after her release from prison. Julie-Ann Stokes (20), with an address at Templehill, Sisters of Charity Halting Site, Blackrock, Co Dublin, had dreamed of becoming a car mechanic while serving a jail sentence in Mountjoy.
She was offered an apprenticeship after she told her story of drug addiction and crime on Marian Finucane's radio show. Ms Finucane described Stokes's subsequent release as "a perfect Christmas present".
She had been sentenced to five years in jail at Wicklow Circuit Criminal Court on December 8th, 1998, but she was released on December 14th last after serving just over a year and had the balance of her sentence suspended.
But just nine days after her release, Stokes was back in trouble after a visit to Cork city which led yesterday to an appearance at Cork District Court on three charges of pickpocketing. Judge Terence Finn heard that Stokes had stolen a total of £200 in the larceny of three purses in Cork on December 23rd but only £60 was recovered by gardai.
Stokes's solicitor, Mr Diarmuid Kelleher, said that it was a truly tragic case in which she had lost everything.
She started smoking heroin and became addicted to the drug and got involved in crime to feed her habit but since being jailed in 1998, she had beaten her habit and got a chance to realise her dream of becoming a motor mechanic, he said. But she had lost everything again by getting in trouble when, on a trip to Cork with her boyfriend on December 23rd last, their car crashed and they didn't have the money to repair it or get a train back to Dublin. So she stole some purses, he said.
"She thought pickpocketing was the only way to get home for Christmas even though she thought all these ways were behind her," said Mr Kelleher.
Judge Finn sentenced Stokes to eight months in jail concurrent on the three larcenies with the sentences to run consecutive to the remainder of the five-year sentence she still has to serve.