Conditional discharge for tree-chopping grandmother after criminal damage conviction

Sioned Jones is to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for two years. File photo: Cork Courts

A grandmother found guilty of causing criminal damage on the land of her recently-deceased neighbour has escaped a jail sentence.

Sioned Jones, a 62-year-old from Maughnaclea, Kealkill near Bantry in West Cork, had pleaded not guilty last November to the charges before Bantry District Court of causing criminal damage on land at Cappabue, Maughnaclea, on March 28, 2020, instead saying she was simply replacing one dead tree she had previously planted on the lands and that she was also planting a memorial tree for the landowner, Johnny Kelleher, who had died just a month earlier.