Three-year suspended sentence for grandmother who stored €40,000 worth of stolen goods

A Ballymun grandmother who stored €40,000 of stolen fashion and beauty goods in her home for criminals has received a three-year suspended sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Martina O' Neill (aged 45), of Gallaun Road, pleaded guilty to handling stolen beauty and fashion goods valued at €40,000 at her home on March 23, 2007.

Sergeant Brian Delaney told Mr Pieter Le Vert BL, prosecuting, that gardaí obtained a search warrant for O’Neill’s home after mounting a surveillance operation on the house. In a rear bedroom they found hundreds of items of clothing, footwear, bags, fashion accessories and beauty goods with a total value of €40,000.

Sgt Delaney said O’Neill was fully co-operative with gardaí on her arrest and admitted the goods were stolen.

Sgt Delaney said the goods came from stores throughout the city centre and told Judge O’Donnell that it was his belief they had been obtained by shoplifting over a protracted period.

Defence counsel, Mr John Costello BL, said O’Neill, who has no previous convictions, had befriended a drug-addicted single mother and had bought the goods from her temporarily in order to give her some money.

He said the arrangement was that the girl would buy back the goods but instead she went back the people she was working for and told them she had not been paid by O’Neill.

Mr Costello said these criminals then came to O’Neill and told her she would have to work off the debt. She felt she was in danger and she allowed the criminals to take goods from the house and leave other items there in storage.

He said the case has had "a profound effect" on O’Neill and she was unlikely to get into trouble again.