President danced to burglar’s tune

A burglar who played guitar and sang during a presidential visit to Cork prison got a sentence of three years for his latest crime yesterday.

The burglar was chased from the scene of his crime by a woman carrying her baby in a sling, despite the fact that he had threatened the householders as he fled.

And yesterday as the burglar was jailed, it emerged that President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina danced to a tune sung and played on guitar by the accused during a visit to the new Cork prison.

Ross O’Connor, aged 39, of 24, Mount Eden Road, Gurranabraher, was sentenced to four years with the last year suspended for a crime committed on June 6.

Detective Garda Maurice Hickey testified yesterday at Cork Circuit Criminal Court that the family who lived in the house had gone to the park that bank holiday Monday and returned at 6pm to find the accused coming down the stairs of their house at Hillgrove Lane, off Watercourse Road, Blackpool, Cork.

Det Garda Hickey said the husband tried to stop him on the stairs but O’Connor pushed past him. The man’s wife then tried to stop him from leaving but he pushed past her also.

As O’Connor left the house, he told them that he knew where they lived and called out the number of the house.

“The woman ran after him with a baby in a sling with her,” Det Garda Hickey said.

She alerted gardaí who were on the scene very quickly. They walked around with the woman for a while until O’Connor emerged from a lane in the area and the woman screamed that this was the man who had been in her house.

O’Connor was arrested. Initially, he denied anything to do with the burglary.

Nothing was taken, but valuables such as a laptop computer had been gathered up inside the house before the culprit fled empty-handed. The accused had 46 previous convictions including 18 counts of burglary and several for robbery.

John Devlin, defending, told Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin that not only had O’Connor played guitar and sung at the new prison for the presidential visit but that Mr Higgins and his wife danced to the song.

Mr Devlin said the accused had been on heroin but detoxed while in prison.

Judge Ó Donnabháin said the threats to the householders were particularly nasty. Det Garda Hickey said the family were in such fear that they had moved out of the house and gone to live elsewhere.