Former apprentice butcher who stole more than €49,000 has sentence adjourned

A former apprentice butcher who stole more than €49,000 from his employer during a “drug-induced paranoia” in the early hours of Christmas Eve last year has had his sentence adjourned.

James Cahill (22) was approached twice by a security guard at Finglas's Charlestown Shopping Centre when he was spotted pushing a wheelie bin in and out of McArdle's butchers at about 5am.

On both occasions the security guard accepted Cahill was using the bin to help move into a house across the street.

Cahill, of Ferrycarrig Park, Coolock, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to theft of €49, 204 from McArdle Meats on December 24th, 2013.

He admitted knowing the shop’s safe codes, which allowed him to steal two days of takings. He has no previous convictions.

Garda Paul Ryan told John Byrne, prosecuting, that Cahill later handed a bag with €17,000 of the stolen money over to gardaí.

He brought officers to where he had stashed a further €5,000 in a shoe down a laneway.

Garda Ryan said he accepted Cahill’s story about handing some of the money to a third party whom he met by chance.

The garda agreed with Anne-Marie Lawlor, defending, that this third party had threatened her client with a lump hammer for the cash.

He further accepted that Cahill’s father managed to retrieve some of this money from the third party before it was handed over to gardaí.

Garda Ryan told the court that the butchers was out of pocket by €17,000 after it had been paid €10,000 in insurance compensation.

He agreed Cahill, who had a chronic cocaine addiction at the time, was highly unlikely to come before the courts again.

Ms Lawlor told the judge that Cahill had been off sick from work at McArdle Meats in the weeks leading up to the crime because of his cocaine addiction.

She asked Judge Desmond Hogan to take into consideration her client's early guilty plea, his genuine remorse, previous clean record and the "huge strides" he had made towards rehabilitation.

Judge Hogan described the offence at the higher end of the middle range of seriousness and accepted Cahill had been “in the throes of drug-induced paranoia”.

He adjourned the case until March next year to see if Cahill is suitable for community service, but warned he is not ruling out a custodial sentence.