‘Ordinary, decent people driven to fraud’ to pay debt, says judge

A judge said “ordinary, decent people” can be “driven into fraud” after receiving threatening demands from their mortgage lenders.

Judge Eugene O’Kelly, Limerick District Court, yesterday heard a case of a trainee teacher forced to commit fraud in order to pay her mortgage, which had fallen into arrears. She had since lost her home.

Shirley Flanagan, 32, admitted five counts of deception and two counts of knowingly using a false insurance disc with the intention of inducing others to accept it as genuine.

The mother of two admitted inducing five men to give her money on the pretence they would be issued with a valid motor insurance policy, with the intent of making a gain for herself.

The five men were drivers employed in Flanagan’s father’s taxi company, which she had taken over.

Limerick District Court heard Flanagan, of Carrigeen, Annacotty, Limerick, was studying to be a teacher when she got into financial difficulty. Her husband had lost his job.

“She was in receipt of a number of telephone calls from her lender,” said solicitor Darragh McCarthy.

“She received threats about her family home. It was then the monies was taken from the drivers.”

Each driver believed they were to be added onto a group insurance policy with Quinn Direct.

The court heard the policy, which had been in Flanagan’s name, was cancelled for non-payment of premium installments.

The offences dated from between Dec 2009 to Jan 2010, and came to light when one of the drivers approached gardaí in 2010 after he contacted Quinn Direct about the policy and was told it did not exist.

In summing up, Judge O’Kelly said an aggravating factor was that “these taxi drivers believed themselves to be bona fide insured to carry passengers” and had unwittingly “exposed passengers to be carried in an uninsured taxi”.

He said Flanagan’s fraud “was not perpetrated for any personal greed” and she had “no trappings of wealth”.

“This was fraud in a misguided attempt to stave off mortgage lenders, who I’m told, were making strong demands and threats for her to pay off her mortgage debt,” said Judge O’Kelly.

“Cases like these further highlight the mortgage debt problem in the country where ordinary, decent people are being driven into fraud to pay back debt.”

Judge O’Kelly remanded Flanagan on continuing bail for payment of €4,400 compensation to appear for sentencing in November.