A tweezers was used by a 69-year-old man to steal cash from a collection box at the Honan Chapel at UCC and, when he was approached by security staff, he claimed he was only lighting a candle.<\/p>\n
However, the elderly man later confessed to the church theft and said he had been suffering from addictions for 50 years.<\/p>\n
Charles Nolan came before Cork District Court where he pleaded guilty to theft from the collection box at the Honan. He said he suffered addictions to both gambling and heroin.<\/p>\n
Sergeant Gear\u00f3id Davis said the theft was carried out at 4.30pm on November 29 2025 at the Honan Chapel on the UCC campus where a man was observed on CCTV by UCC security staff acting suspiciously near a donation box at the front of the church.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cSecurity at the scene confronted the male who initially stated that he had lit a candle. On further questioning by security the male stated that he had taken money from the donation box. The security guard then informed the male he would contact the garda\u00ed.\n <\/p>\n
\u201cGarda\u00ed ascertained he was Charles Nolan of 7 Murphy’s Gardens, Turners Cross, who gave a voluntary interview where he made full admissions to taking \u20ac22 from the donation box using a tweezers,\u201d Sgt Davis said.<\/p>\n
The defendant has an extensive history of committing exactly this type of offence at churches around Cork.<\/p>\n
His solicitor Frank Buttimer said:\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n \u201cHe has a double addiction \u2013 diamorphine and gambling. He has been attending Arbour House most recently for a period of six or seven months. He knows he is clearly at risk of imprisonment.\u201d\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
Judge Mary Dorgan said: \u201cHe certainly is. It is just mean. I appreciate he has addictions.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Charles Nolan spoke up at court and said: \u201cI wasn\u2019t in a casino since I was arrested last \u2026 I have a 50-year addiction. I am not taking heroin anymore.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Judge Dorgan directed the preparation of a probation report and put sentencing back until June 18.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A tweezers was used by a 69-year-old man to steal cash from a collection box at the Honan…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":403927,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[79,54,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-403926","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-cork-news","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/403927"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}