A judge is considering jailing a social worker after she put the names of children who were never in care on a HSE register in order to defraud the State of nearly €100,000.

A Corkman serving a four-year sentence for money-laundering sued the State for damage caused to his house when gardaí carried out a search for money they believed was hidden there.

A social worker put the names of children on the official HSE list of children at risk who should never have been placed on it in order to carry out a €96,000 financial scam for herself.

Thousands of euro that were the proceeds of crime were found hidden in homes belonging to members of the Heaphy family in Cork.

A former HSE official was arrested and charged yesterday with 80 theft and fraud charges related to €92,000 in cash and she immediately signed a plea of guilty to all counts.

Four women and two men from one Cork city family were arrested yesterday, as part of a lengthy investigation, and charged with various counts under money-laundering legislation.

A businessman caught with 16,000 UGG-style boots and over 200 loose UGG labels denied breaching the Trademarks Act and said: “I thought about it definitely but I did not do it.”

A solicitor representing a man accused of harassment became the victim of the same crime by his client in a case described by the sentencing judge as “harassment squared”.

A young woman claimed she was raped at a house party by an off-duty garda but, after five days of investigation, she admitted to making up the story.

A POLISH man who sustained head injuries in a weekend attack in Cork died yesterday.

A Polish man in his 30s is in a serious condition at Cork University Hospital following an attack at the weekend and today a man accused of assaulting him claimed he was acting in self-defence.