Six-month suspended sentence for 15-year-old ATM thief

A 15-year-old thief, who stole €200 from a woman as she was making a withdrawal from an ATM on Dublin’s Grafton Street, received a six-month suspended sentence at the Children’s Court today.

The boy, who is originally from Romania, admitted the theft, which occurred on January 6 last.

Judge Bryan Smyth was told that the teenager and another person approached a woman who had been withdrawing money.

“They surrounded her and a sum of €200 was withdrawn from her account,” said garda Gavin Reilly of Harcourt Terrace station.

Garda O’Reilly said the teenager already had 10 convictions – nine of them were for thefts.

Defence solicitor Mr John Quinn said the teenager had brought €200 to court as compensation which was then handed over.

Mr Quinn said the boy, who was accompanied to court by his mother, hoped to begin a training course and he asked the judge to take into consideration his client’s guilty plea.

Judge Smyth imposed a six-month sentence but suspended it on condition the teenager was of good behaviour and did not re-offend within 12 months.

In May, the boy had been given a six-month suspended sentence for a spate of slick ATM scams where five men each had €200 stolen from under their noses.

The court had heard then that the teen had brought money to court to compensate his victims and had been co-operating with the Probation Service to address his offending.

The court had also been told he had enrolled in a school and was attending literacy classes.

Armed with a newspaper, using sleight of hand and by distracting his victims, the boy repeatedly stole money at bank machines.

On that occasion he had pleaded guilty to five counts of theft of €200 from men at bank machines, on Dublin’s O’Connell Street, on separate dates in January and February last.

He also admitted attempted theft of €200 from a man at an ATM on Dublin’s Westmoreland Street, on December 31 last.

A garda had said during one of the boy’s earlier cases that during all of the similarly styled thefts, the boy had approached the victims “holding a newspaper and distracted them by waving it in front of the screen, so he could steal €200”.

The boy had netted €1,000, which was not recovered.

Earlier, a garda had said that at one stage the boy had 51 live charges before the courts; his offences had been committed nationwide and the teen had been arrested for thefts at ATMs in counties Dublin, Galway, Sligo and Kildare.

During an earlier case, when the boy was aged 14 another judge had said: “Parental supervision does not exist at this stage. He is only 14 and roaming the country, the court would have grave reservations.”