This article is from page 6 of the 2013-04-30 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
A CAMPAIGNER for the homeless is facing a possible prison sentence after being convicted of stealing almost € 27,000 from an 87 year resident of St Joseph’s Hospital in Ennis. At Ennis Circuit Criminal Court on Thursday, a jury convicted Josephine O’Brien (59) on nine of 10 counts of theft from the bank account of Stephen O’Halloran.
Ms O’Brien, with an address at 15 Bridgeview, Roslevan, was found guilty of stealing € 26, 503 on dates between July 2006 and October 2010. The pair first met when they were patients living in Ennis General Hospital. They subsequently lived together in rented accommodation.
The two-day trial heard that after Mr O’Halloran became a resident of St Joseph’s Hospital in December 2005, he gave Ms O’Brien his ATM card for the account that received his English pension.
The court heard that when enquiries were made to arrange for the pension to pay for Mr O’Halloran’s care in St Joseph’s, there was very little money left in the account.
Ms O’Brien admitted making the transactions over the period from January 2006 to October 2010, claiming she had consent to do so.
The court heard evidence from Mr O’Halloran who said she did not have the authority to make the withdrawals. The court heard that Mr O’Halloran said Ms O’Brien visited him for the first six months of his stay in St Joseph’s but that the visits stopped after June 2006.
This was disputed by Ms O’Brien. The court also heard evidence from Detective Garda Beatrice Ryan who investigated the theft.
In a Garda interview, Ms O’Brien said, “I know I shouldn’t have taken the money but I did.”
She told gardaí, “I am sorry. I want to pay it back.”Ms O’Brien told gardaí that she never spent the money on herself. She said she used it to pay rent and to fund a drop in centre for the homeless in Chapel Lane, Ennis.
Ms O’Brien is co-founder of the Homeless Education Learning Programme (HELP), an Ennis-based organisation that supports homeless people. In his closing speech, Counsel for the State, Stephen Coughlan said there had been a pattern of Ms O’Brien “clearing” out Mr O’Halloran’s bank account.
He said, “You don’t get a blanket authority to raid a person’s account.”
Counsel for Ms O’Brien Lorcan Connolly BL said, “She opened a drop in centre. Is that the profile of a dishonest person?”
It took the jury two hours to return a unanimous verdict of guilty in nine of the ten counts Ms O’Brien was charged with. They returned a verdict of not guilty for the count covering January 2006 to June 2006.