Community service for bank porter who stole €75,000

An Ulster Bank porter who stole €75,000 from the bank to repay debts he ran up in a "fanciful and unrealistic scheme" of exchanging Irish ‘punts’ for Sterling ‘pounds’ at a loss to himself, has been ordered to carry out 240 hours work in the community.

Paul Kavanagh, aged 33, of Basin Street, Dublin 7, played a game of "musical chairs" with people’s money and as his counsel, Mr Remy Farrell BL, told the court: "When the music stopped, a lot of people were left without a profit."

Kavanagh pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to six counts of theft from several people on various dates in October and November 2002 and to one count of theft of €75,000 from Ulster Bank, Walkinstown on November 5, 2002.

Judge Desmond Hogan said a community service report stated that Kavangh had worked well with the service and he wished to give him "the full benefit of this co-operation."

Judge Hogan gave Kavanagh a three years sentence for the bank theft and a two year concurrent sentence on the other charges but substituted the sentences with 240 hours community service

Mr Farrell said Kavanagh had money he made from share dealing but that this would not be released in the immediate future. Judge Hogan ordered that as soon as that money was freed, Kavanagh must hand it over to the Ulster Bank in Walkinstown.

Detective Garda Niall Brophy told prosecuting counsel, Mr Dominic McGinn BL, that in a bid to make himself popular, Kavanagh offered a deal to people in which he gave them one Sterling ‘pound’ for every Irish ‘punt’ they gave him.

When the Euro came into circulation he made the exchanges at the rate of one Sterling ‘pound’ for €1.27.

Det Gda Brophy said that as the news spread, people with large amounts of money began to take advantage of Kavanagh’s scheme. They gave him bank drafts in thousands of Euros which he then exchanged for equivalent amounts in Sterling. He could no longer make up the shortfalls himself and began to use one person’s money to make up the shortfall for the other.

He ran up debts amounting to €75,000. Some of the people to whom he owed money began to threaten him and his disabled sister. He then stole the €75,000 in cash from the Bank.

Det Gda Brophy said that as a trusted employee of the Bank, for whom he had been working since 1996, he had access to large amounts of cash and he stole the money from a cash box which he was taking to the vaults.

Mr Farrell told Judge Hogan that Kavanagh had no previous convictions, had been trusted by the bank and was a person of otherwise impeccable character. He said it was "an entirely senseless crime" from which Kavanagh himself had not made any profit at all.