Jail for smashing ATM out of wall with stolen digger

A man who used a stolen digger to smash an ATM containing over €124,000 out of a bank wall has been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison.

Judge Francis Comerford, sentencing Bernard Quigley, of Branchfield, Drumfin, Co Sligo, said the theft had been “an affront and an attack on the sanctity of an Irish town”. He suspended the last two years of the sentence and backdated it to August 15, 2014, when the accused was taken into custody in connection with the theft at the Bank of Ireland, Teeling St, Tubbercurry.

The judge pointed out that the damage to the bank and the cost of replacing the ATM safe had been over €40,000. The judge said that while all the cash in the ATM had been recovered by gardaí, this was not to the credit of the accused but was thanks to the members of the public who alerted gardaí and to the “speediness and efficiency of the Garda response”.