A woman who carried out 21 thefts totalling over \u20ac3,000 from shops in Cork City and suburbs got a Monopoly-style \u2018Get Out of Jail Free\u2019 card on Friday.<\/p>\n
38-year-old Bridget Cawley of Allinett\u2019s Lane, Gerald Griffin Street, Blackpool, Cork, pleaded guilty to all charges and was sentenced by Judge Mary Dorgan at Cork District Court on September 8.<\/p>\n
The defendant was never in custody before but was remanded in custody on these charges during the summer and was recently given a two-month jail term for failing to turn up in court on two occasions.<\/p>\n
Shane Collins-Daly, solicitor, said this period in custody was \u201ca wake-up call for her\u201d. Judge Mary Dorgan noted there were particular difficulties in the defendant\u2019s past which the 38-year-old was anxious to address.<\/p>\n
The judge said she would suspend an eight-month prison sentence on condition that Ms Cawley would enter a probation bond and engage around the rehabilitation issues necessary in her life. Judge Dorgan warned her that any failure to engage would see an activation of the sentence.<\/p>\n
Having explained all those conditions, the judge told Ms Cawley she was getting a Monopoly boardgame-style \u2018Get Out of Jail Free\u2019 card.<\/p>\n
Some of the thefts were of Yankee candles, a speaker, a large amount of alcohol and other property. Several counts related to stealing steak from supermarkets.<\/p>\n
Recently, on June 20 she was at O\u2019Reilly\u2019s Garage, Watercourse Road, where she was caught shoplifting \u20ac42 worth of property. On December 23, 2023, at Dunnes Merchants Quay she stole \u20ac202 worth of steaks.<\/p>\n
On various other dates between August 2023 and August this year she carried out thefts at Centra on North Main Street, O\u2019Shea\u2019s pharmacy, Lidl in Cornmarket Street, Dunnes on Curraheen Road, Marks and Spencer in Douglas, Dealz in Blackpool, Candelmania in Merchants Quay, Dunnes on St. Patrick\u2019s Street, Aldi on Tory Top Road, Dunnes in Ballyvolane, Soundstore in Blackpool, Lidl on Cornmarket Street, Mr Price on North Main Street, and Self-Help Africa charity shop on North Main Street.<\/p>\n
Her solicitor, Mr Collins-Daly, accepted that she had difficulties attending appointments due to a somewhat chaotic lifestyle. He said she suffered a profoundly tragic accident and relapsed into alcohol abuse.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe can only apologise and cannot offer any excuse. She has genuine and profound mental health difficulties, aggravated by alcohol misuse,\u201d Mr Collins-Daly said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman who carried out 21 thefts totalling over \u20ac3,000 from shops in Cork City and suburbs got…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[79,54,61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-45945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-cork-news","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45945","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=45945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}