Property tycoon ‘in no position’ to pay €12,500 bail

A property tycoon charged with falsely alleging he was kidnapped and held hostage after he vanished for eight months cannot afford to post bail, a court has been told.

Kevin McGeever, who once sold homes from an international portfolio in Dubai, has claimed he does not have enough money to cover a €12,500 bond.

The 68-year-old, who walked into a country courthouse sporting dark glasses and a black leather jacket, was remanded in custody with consent to bail after also being charged with wasting police time.

Mr McGeever appeared at Strokestown District Court, Co Roscommon.

The court heard that the pensioner, with an address at a mansion named Nirvana, in Ballywinna, Craughwell, in neighbouring Co Galway, was in “no position” to pay his bail.

Mr McGeever, who has a faint scar on his forehead from where the letters “TIEF” were scrawled before his dramatic reappearance late one night on a country road in January, did not speak during his case.

Sitting on a defendant’s bench in the packed, wood-panelled courtroom, squeezed among dozens of others, he spoke briefly to a solicitor as his case was called.

Joan Devine, acting on behalf of Mr McGeever’s Dublin-based solicitor Tom Brabazon, requested the judge set a lower bail amount of €8,000.

“He is not in a position to come up with that kind of money,” she said.

Judge Geoffrey Browne rejected the application and remanded Mr McGeever in custody with consent to bail.

Mr McGeever, who was arrested in Dublin on Tuesday, will appear before Harristown Court in Castlerea, Co Roscommon, tomorrow.

The once-successful businessman, originally from Swinford in Co Mayo, was reported missing on May 27, 2012, and found eight months later wandering barefoot on a rural road in the west of Ireland.

Until his disappearance he had been living in the impressive mansion Nirvana.

The gardens around the country pile have since become overgrown.

The night he was discovered near Ballinamore, Co Leitrim, by a man and a woman, Catherine Vallely and her friend Pat Rehill, he was described as being a shrunken figure, in a dishevelled state, with a long beard, hair and finger nails.

He was said to be malnourished and dehyd-rated, and as having lost several stone in weight.

A far cry from his bedraggled state on the night he reappeared, Mr McGeever looked clean-cut and polished in court yesterday.

Dressed in a blue and white striped shirt, with leather jacket, dark jeans and smart shoes, his long, matted mane of the night of his reappearance was replaced with a short, sharp haircut.

The remnants of the letters etched into his forehead could still be seen.

Mr McGeever’s arrival at the old-fashioned court attracted crowds of locals, who waited to catch a glimpse of him as he made the long walk from an unmarked Garda car across the street to the powder-blue and grey building.

A court clerk said it was a pity a paint job on the peeling exterior walls had not been finished the day before.

Wearing wraparound dark shades, he dropped his head as he walked through the crowds.

Mr McGeever had been arrested on Tuesday afternoon at Brooklawn, in Clontarf, north Dublin, where he has been living, and taken to Gort Garda Station in Co Galway before being brought to court yesterday in the neighbouring county.

He was charged under sections 12(a) and 12(b) of the 1976 Criminal Law Act, relating to knowingly giving false information that an offence had been committed and wasting Garda time.

The charges of false information could ultimately lead to a fine of €500 or 12 months in jail.

The charges allege Mr McGeever made false reports and statements to gardaí between Jan 29 and Feb 28 this year that offences of false imprisonment, assault, and threats to harm had occurred.

A uniformed Garda Inspector Padraig Jones asked that the judge attach a string of conditions to Mr McGeever’s bail.

These included that he hand over his passport and that he refrain from applying for replacement travel documents.

Mr McGeever must also provide an address where he intends to live and sign on in a Garda station three times a week on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday between 7am and 10pm.

The pensioner, escorted by uniformed gardaí, was grabbed by the arm and quickly redirected to a waiting unmarked Garda car by one of the officers after he headed the wrong way out through a throng of photographers and onlookers.