Man jailed for damaging headstones
“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.
