Convicted judge admits new charge of false accounting

A former district court judge serving a prison sentence for deception will be sentenced in March after pleading guilty to a further charge of false accounting.

Heather Perrin, aged 61, is serving a two-and-half-year sentence for trying to defraud an elderly friend of half of his estate while he was a client of her solicitors firm.

Perrin appeared for arraignment before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday after her solicitor applied to the court for a production order from the Dóchas Centre on Thursday to allow her enter her guilty plea. A trial date scheduled for March has now been vacated.

Perrin, from Lambay Court, Malahide, yesterday admitted that between May 25, 2004 and Feb 2, 2009, she falsified an account, namely an eight-page document entitled “Cash Account, Estate of Gary Doyle Deceased”.

Judge Mary Ellen Ring set a sentence date for Mar 13, when the full facts will be heard in the case.

Perrin was convicted by a jury following an eight-day trial in November of deceptively inducing Thomas Davis to bequeath half of his estate to her children, Sybil and Adam Perrin, at her office on Fairview Strand on Jan 22, 2009.

The verdict marked the first time in the history of the State that a judge had been found guilty of a serious crime. Perrin offered her resignation prior to her sentencing.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Perrin’s defence team tried to have a media blackout imposed on her trial last year.

Perrin’s lawyers argued that coverage of the trial would prejudice Perrin’s second trial.

At the start of her trial in November at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Judge Ring agreed that the trial could be reported after hearing counter-arguments from lawyers from several media organisations.

The judge agreed to allow reporting on the condition that no mention was made of the pending second trial or of the defence application