Man with underwear fetish broke headpiece

A father of four with a fetish for breaking into women’s homes to steal their underwear has handed over €700 in compensation for damaging one victim’s designer headpiece, which he broke in a jealous rage because he did not own one like it himself.

Gerard Lee, aged 61, a native of Limerick with an address at 68, Killeen Woods, Tralee, Co Kerry, pleaded guilty before Galway District Court in April to burglary at a house in Forster Court, Galway, on August 1, 2015.

Lee pleaded guilty also to burglary at a neighbouring house in The Elms, Forster St, on the previous night, and to handling a woman’s purse knowing it was stolen on the same night.

Sentencing was adjourned until yesterday for the payment of compensation to the owner of the broken headpiece.

In April, the court heard that Lee entered the house at Forster Court in Galway city on August 1 last year through an unlocked back door and took a number of items of ladies’ underwear and clothing.

He was caught leaving the house with the stolen items by one of the occupants and was held there until gardaí arrived.

While he was in the house, Lee spotted a Philip Treacy ‘fascinator’ headpiece worth an estimated €500, which belonged to one of the female tenants.

He broke it in two, admitting later that he was overcome with jealousy because he did not own one like it himself.

Lee’s car was searched and other items were recovered, including a Samsung tablet computer in a pink rucksack.

They had been taken in a burglary the previous night from the neighbouring house at the Elms.

Lee was also found in possession of a woman’s purse and was charged with handling stolen property.

He received sentences totalling eight months, suspended for 12 months, at Limerick District Court in April 2010, for 31 similar-type burglaries involving the theft of women’s underwear.

“The genesis for all these burglaries and behaviour is an underlying psycho-sexual disease,” defence solicitor Ronan Murphy explained to the court in April.

“This has been going on for 21 years. It’s cost him his marriage. He is now 61. He’s separated from his wife and has four grown-up children”, said Mr Murphy, adding that Lee was now working for Fás as a chef, earning €300 a week.

Mr Murphy said these latest offences served as a catalyst for his client to go and get help and he was now attending a psychologist since last August.

He said Lee was a “pillar of the community” in Tralee, where he now lived and was involved in raising money for charity through a cycling club there.

Mr Murphy explained that his client broke the headpiece because of his dysfunction and would need counselling for the rest of his life, to which Judge Mary Fahy had said: “That is ridiculous, that he would be jealous of a woman’s headpiece, and I would want that €500 in court as a given.”

Mr Murphy said yesterday that his client had brought €700 to court for the owner of the Philip Treacy hat as a genuine expression of his remorse.