No jail for man who charged elderly woman €43,000 for repairs worth €1,800

A Meath man who charged a 78-year-old woman more than €43,000 for repairs to leaking gutters on her roof when it should have cost just €1,800 has escaped a jail sentence.

Twenty-seven-year-old Stephen Coffey, previously of Beech Drive, Navan and now living in Sweden, received a two-year suspended sentence today at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

He pleaded guilty to four charges of dishonesty with the intention of making a gain for himself and causing a loss to another at the woman's Stillorgan home on dates between November 27 and December 4, 2008.