Former garda convicted of damaging protected monument

A former Garda has been convicted of damaging a Bronze Age burial mound in County Wicklow.

69-year-old Thomas Hand of Carrig in Blessington denies taking stones from the protected national monument at Carrig in Blessington on 4 May 2011.

However, local eye-witnesses said they saw the former garda on the night, swinging a pick-axe and removing large stones from the monument in a wheelbarrow.

On arrest, Hand told gardaí he had been taking loose field stones from a different area of the field and said he had bought the land "as a hobby" for the purpose of planting trees.

Following a week-long trial at Bray Circuit Court Hand has been found guilty by a jury of criminal damage and remanded on continuing bail.