Jail for father-of-eight who agreed to sell 10 stolen cars on DoneDeal

Nicholas Keane said he "wanted to get money together to give my kids a good Christmas".

A father-of-eight who agreed to sell 10 stolen cars for almost €90,000 on website DoneDeal has being jailed for three years.

Nicholas Keane (41) later told gardaí in interview that the operation gave him the chance to make money because he was behind on his maintenance. “I wanted to get money together to give my kids a good Christmas,” he said.

He apologised for the crimes and said he felt bad for those that lost money. “I feel terrible, I feel guilty. If I won the lotto I would pay them all back."

Keane of Chapel Street, Balbriggan, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to 10 counts of handling stolen vehicles and two charges of inducing another to purchase a stolen vehicle on dates between July 11, 2016 and October 25, 2016. He has a number of previous convictions including theft, stealing cars, road traffic and drug offences.

Detective Garda William Saunderson told Pieter Le Vert BL, prosecuting, that he was satisfied that Keane's role was to sell on the cars and that he was not responsible for stealing the vehicles. He was to get paid about €500 for each successful sale.

Keane, who went under the name of David O'Brien, would meet the purchaser at a pre-arranged rendezvous, hand over the registration details and the car and accept the payment for the vehicle in cash.

He took in a total of €88,795, which he told gardaí he then handed over to a man with “a foreign accent”.

John Byrne BL, defending, said that Keane had worked on building sites but ran into financial difficulties while out of work and was lured into offending by the promise of easy money.

Mr Byrne said his client had no involvement with stealing the cars, but rather that he was “the front-of-house man”, the person “who dupes people into buying the cars”.

He said Keane accepted a high degree of moral culpability and said he had no financial means to repay the victims.

Judge Melanie Greally said that Keane was acting as the front man for an operation and earned a commission of around €500 per car. He had no part in the theft of the cars.

She suspended the last year of a four-year sentence on condition that he obey all directions of the Probation Service regarding substance abuse.

Had to borrow money to pay back her sister

A number of victims stated in victim impact reports before the court that the financial loss they suffered greatly impacted on their lives. Most of the buyers had carried out vehicle checks on the cars before agreeing to buy them, with one man taking it to his local mechanic to be looked over.

Many people bought the car with funds raised from life savings, while others borrowed cash or traded in old vehicles to complete the sale.

One woman, who had borrowed money from her sister and credit union to buy a vehicle from Keane for €13,750, had to later borrow more money from the credit union to pay back her sister and buy a new car. The family were under extreme pressure as a result and she had to get another job to help pay back the debt.

Another man, who had paid €9,500 for a car from Keane, worried about having enough income to pay his mortgage and was under so much stress that his long-term relationship broke down.

This man and another victim indicated that there was a need to have some sort of assistance in place to help compensate people who found themselves victims of such crimes.

Det Gda Saunderson told Mr Le Vert that many people reported the vehicles as stolen to the gardaí themselves when they noticed discrepancies on the tax discs on the car.

Met potential customers in public places around Dublin

Keane met all of his potential customers in public areas around Dublin and, as he was not wearing a disguise, he was clearly captured on CCTV cameras.

In the weeks before his ultimate arrest Keane became a suspect in the crimes after one garda identified him from that footage.

Garda Darren Swan told Mr Le Vert that he stopped Keane driving a stolen Volvo S40 in Rush, Co Dublin on November 15, 2016. Keane had just sold a stolen car for €6,000 six days earlier.

He requested Keane's driver's licence and was handed the bogus license in the name of David O'Brien. Gda Swan said he recognised the name as that given to the man Keane had previously sold the car to.

A receipt book, outlining the previous car sales, was also found in the stolen vehicle. All the receipts were signed by David O'Brien.

'Bumped into a lad'

Keane was arrested on three occasions in total and interviewed by separate gardaí.

He told Gda Swan that he had “bumped into a lad” who had asked him if he would be interested in buying a car. He claimed he handed over €900 for the Volvo S40 but later realised it was stolen. He said he knew he should have reported it but he decided to try and sell it on to cover his loss.

Keane told Det Gda Saunderson in interview that he would get a call from a foreign person to sell a car. He said he was glad he was caught.

Det Gda Saunderson agreed with Mr Byrne that this type of offence was becoming more common.

He accepted that Keane's only role was to attend at the meetings, take the cash and hand over the car. He was not responsible for putting the adverts up on the website.

Det Gda Saunderson agreed that it was “inevitable” that Keane would get caught given that all the meetings took place in public. He accepted a suggestion from counsel that “it was not that well thought out from Keane's point of view”.