THE TRIAL OF a man accused of breaking into a car-sales business, stealing 10 cars and having them crushed for money, opened at the Limerick Circuit Criminal Court today.<\/p>\n
Paul Curtin (46), of Ince Bui, Cappamore, Co Limerick, pleaded not guilty to 12 offences, which all allegedly occurred on 20 December 2019.<\/p>\n
Curtin denied 10 counts of theft from John Moloney Motors, on 20 December 2019, when the business was located at Ballysimon Road, Limerick, under the then ownership of John Moloney, who the court heard had subsequently died.<\/p>\n
Curtin also pleaded not guilty to one count of causing criminal damage at Moloney\u2019s car sales lot, by sawing\/cutting through the premises entrance gates.<\/p>\n
He pleaded not guilty to one count of acting dishonestly and with the intention of making a gain for himself or another, or of causing a loss to another, by any deception inducing another to do an act.<\/p>\n
A jury of seven women and five men was sworn in to hear the trial on Monday.<\/p>\n
Opening the prosecution\u2019s case, barrister John O\u2019Sullivan said it is alleged that Curtin \u201chad to cut or saw through solid steel gates\u201d to get access to \u201csecured cars\u201d at Moloney\u2019s car lot.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Sullivan alleged Curtin brought the cars to scrap business, Limerick Metals, also located at Ballysimon Road, which had a machine for \u201ccrushing\u201d motor vehicles, and had all 10 cars scrapped.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe [Curtin] had no right to damage the steel gate, it was a brazen act of theft,\u201d O\u2019Sullivan told the jury.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe cut this gate, property of the Moloney family, and removed the vehicles from Mr Moloney\u2019s garage, vehicles that had been well secured, and took them to a facility for scrapping vehicles and other items.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Sullivan said the jury would be shown evidence of Curtin \u201ccaptured\u201d on closed circuit television security cameras \u201cnot only removing the cars, but he is also captured getting them scrapped\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe accused forcibly entered Mr Moloney\u2019s property and removed cars and took them straight to a scrapyard and had them scrapped, it is believed he got money for that\u2026he had no right or authority to do so,\u201d continued O\u2019Sullivan BL.<\/p>\n
Prosecution witness, Garda Jamie Jordan, told the court that when he responded to Limerick Meals on the afternoon in question, it was too late and the cars had been crushed.<\/p>\n
Garda Jordan said he met Moloney\u2019s daughter, Judy Moloney, who gave him Curtin\u2019s name and phone number as being the person she believed had removed the cars from her family\u2019s car sales premises.<\/p>\n
Garda Jordan said he telephoned Curtin and that the accused told him he had moved the cars to Limerick Metals \u201cunder the instructions\u201d of Stephen O\u2019Sullivan, who the court heard is also known as Stephen \u201cBawn\u201d O\u2019Sullivan.<\/p>\n
John O\u2019Sullivan BL, instructed by Limerick state solicitor, Padraig Mawe, told the jury that \u201cBawn\u201d O\u2019Sullivan was \u201calso involved in a second hand motor trade\u201d at the time.<\/p>\n
John O\u2019Sullivan said Moloney\u2019s business was performing \u201cpretty poorly\u201d at the time, and Moloney was being \u201chelped out\u201d by his daughter Judy and his son Gerard.<\/p>\n
O\u2019Sullivan BL said, at the time, Moloney had entered into an \u201cagreement\u201d with Bawn O\u2019Sullivan, allowing him to operate his own car sales business on the same site; however, both car lots were trading \u201cseparate\u201d to one another, and Moloney\u2019s cars were \u201cwell secured\u201d.<\/p>\n
Nicholas Hall BL, barrister for Curtin, instructed by solicitor Sarah Ryan, asked Garda Jordan to repeat what Curtin told him when he rang him about the cars that had been removed from Moloney\u2019s Car Sales.<\/p>\n
Garda Jordan told the court: \u201cHe [Curtin] said he removed vehicles to Limerick Metals on instructions from Stephen O\u2019Sullivan\u201d.<\/p>\n
The trial, before Judge Colin Daly, continues on Tuesday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE TRIAL OF a man accused of breaking into a car-sales business, stealing 10 cars and having them…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21352,151844,54,1115,61,60,1396,77192,43,276742],"class_list":["post-653013","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-car-theft","tag-court-news","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-limerick","tag-limerick-circuit-criminal-court","tag-news","tag-paul-curtin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653013","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=653013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}