Man avoids jail for role in robbing pensioner

A 22-year-old Clare man has again avoided jail for his role in two robberies which caused a pensioner to cycle nearly 50km through the night in terror to check himself into a nursing home.

Joseph Lernihan, with an address at Finnuremore Park, Mullagh, had pleaded guilty at Ennis Circuit Criminal Court to two counts of robbery at the home of the then 68-year-old Michael McMahon on two separate occasions in February 2012.

On March 3, 2014, Judge Carroll Moran gave Lernihan a suspended three-year sentence, ordering him to pay €3,780 compensation and to forfeit a Volkswagen Passat he purchased with the proceeds of his crime.