{"id":672840,"date":"2026-11-02T17:12:09","date_gmt":"2026-11-02T17:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/672840\/"},"modified":"2026-11-02T17:12:09","modified_gmt":"2026-11-02T17:12:09","slug":"former-ireland-rugby-player-brendan-mullin-pleads-not-guilty-to-perfume-theft-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/672840\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Ireland rugby player Brendan Mullin pleads not guilty to perfume theft \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Former Irish rugby international <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/brendan-mullin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/brendan-mullin\/\">Brendan Mullin<\/a> has pleaded not guilty to stealing a high-end fragrance from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/brown-thomas\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/brown-thomas\/\">Brown Thomas<\/a> on Dublin\u2019s Grafton Street. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The ex-rugby star, who won 55 Irish caps between 1984 and 1995 before moving into financial services, is accused of the theft of Herm\u00e8s perfume worth \u20ac158 on May 15th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He faced his fifth hearing on this charge when he appeared before Judge John Hughes at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin-district-court\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/dublin-district-court\/\">Dublin District Court<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mullin (62) represented himself because of the ongoing row over legal aid reforms, which has led many solicitors to withdraw from District Court cases.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">When his case was called, Mullin greeted the judge and said: \u201cMy solicitor cannot be here obviously because of the ongoing dispute.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI am seeking a hearing date at District Court level, and pleading not guilty,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Hughes noted Mullin would be contesting the case and confirmed with the court sergeant that it was a \u201cshort matter\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He set March 8th as the hearing date and remanded Mullin, of Albert Lodge, Stillorgan Road, Donnybrook, Dublin 4, on continuing bail.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Earlier, his solicitor was granted an order for disclosure of a statement and described the video footage as inconclusive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Garda Nathan Cox of Pearse Street is prosecuting Mullin on a single charge under section 4 of the Theft and Fraud Act. The alleged offence, at District Court level, carries a maximum sentence of 12 months and a fine of up to \u20ac3,000 on conviction.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Director of Public Prosecutions has, \u201cbased on an evaluation of \u20ac158\u201d, directed summary disposal in the District Court, rather than sending the case forward to the Circuit Court, which has wider sentencing powers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The District Court has accepted jurisdiction. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Irish rugby international Brendan Mullin has pleaded not guilty to stealing a high-end fragrance from Brown Thomas&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":672841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[210897,34320,615,8411,61,60,43],"class_list":["post-672840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-brendan-mullin","tag-brown-thomas","tag-dublin","tag-dublin-district-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672840","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=672840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/672840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/672841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=672840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=672840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=672840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}