Man jailed for damaging headstones

A criminal who was trying to get into the “headstone business” has been jailed for 18 months after causing criminal damage to cemetery headstones in what the judge described as “an unbelievable mean, despicable crime”.

“It is difficult to imagine that not alone would a fella go along to a graveyard and damage headstones but damage them for profit — making money by taking a statue from one place to another,” said Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin of Mark Howell of 6 Railway Cottages, McCurtain Hill, Clonakilty.

Cork Circuit Criminal Court heard that a 72-year-old widow who visited her husband’s grave in West Cork several times a day was distraught to find a bronze statue of the Virgin Mary smashed from a shelf on the headstone. The thief had left a bronze statue of Padre Pio in its place.