Fearless thieves ‘making joke of system'

Shoplifting is reaching epidemic levels and the system is “an absolute joke” because there is no effective deterrent, according to a district court judge.

Judge Seamus Hughes said the system was at breaking point and the scale of the problem was making it difficult for small shopkeepers to stay open.

At Mullingar District Court he said he was frustrated and that gardaí were wasting his time and the time of the Courts Service by bringing shoplifting cases before him when there was no effective deterrent.

Court orders are not followed, he said, describing how shoplifters and thieves are released within days of being jailed. Fines are not paid so more Garda resources are wasted in following unpaid fines.

There is no effective punishment for people who commit crimes against property, he said.

Recently RGDATA, the group representing independent family-owned grocery shops and convenience stores, published a study which found only 25% of retail crime perpetrators were prosecuted and convicted in the last year. That study also found that a five-month jail sentence was the most severe penalty for the crimes but only 5% of those convicted were given jail sentences.

It wants the reformation of the penalty system to include stronger use of custodial sentences, a minimum term for robberies involving violence against a retailer and greater powers for judges to issue exclusion orders on persistent offenders.

Yesterday, mother of two Geraldine Joyce, aged 22, of Riverpark, Edgeworthstown, Longford, admitted that there is nothing to stop her committing thefts in this jurisdiction, but she said she would not be going back to Northern Ireland.

She recently got a suspended sentence and spent a week in custody with other members of her family after she was arrested there for shoplifting.

Joyce had “gone North and paid for nothing”, Judge Hughes said. She was before the court on theft charges relating to separate dates this year where baby clothes, bottles of kerosene, and burgers were stolen and where Joyce failed to pay for a beauty treatment.

Judge Hughes said Joyce and her family are involved in shoplifting on an almost full-time basis.

He said he previously invited the governor of the Dochas Centre to Athlone District Court after one of Joyce’s relations was released two days into a two-week sentence. He said he’d given just two weeks because he believed a sentence of less than a month couldn’t be cut short. In another situation one of Joyce’s relations was released three days into a six-month sentence.

It is only a courtesy to gardaí that thieves and shoplifters aren’t released on the same day, he said, adding that the policy of early release shows no respect for the work gardaí are doing.

He invited the president of Mullingar’s Chamber of Commerce to come before him in January when Joyce is due back in court.

Judge Hughes said he wants to know the cost of shoplifting to the businesses in Mullingar and to get an insight into the security measures such as training, cameras and staff which firms are forced to employ.

He said that maybe when traders’ views are heard, politicians, legislators, and policy makers might listen.