Man jailed after claiming to be from IRA and demanding €50,000 from woman

A man who claimed to be from the IRA and demanded €50,000 in cash from a woman at a drop-off point has been jailed for 18 months.

Kevin McCauley demanded the cash from Angela McDaid after he heard she had benefited from the sale of land.

The 37-year-old left Ms McDaid terrified but she went to the Garda who tracked down McCauley by identifying the stamp on the demand letter.

McCauley admitted demanding money with menaces and Judge John Aylmer sentenced him to a total of 18 months at Letterkenny Circuit Court in Co Donegal.

McCauley had heard how distant relative Angela McDaid had come into some cash and made the demand for the €50,000 in cash be dropped off in a yellow bag at Doneyloop in Castlefin.

Garda Sinead McLaughlin of Castlefin Garda station told how investigators managed to identify a number on the stamp which led them to Lifford post office and could identify the stamp was sold on October 31st, 2018.

Upon viewing CCTV footage they identified a lone male buying the stamp.

They then cross-referenced that footage with CCTV footage from Lifford Garda station which showed the man parking an SUV.

Gardaí then began an undercover surveillance operation at the scene where the letter of demand instructed for the €50,000 to be dropped off.

At 5.30am gardaí observed a white Audi A6 which they pursued after getting its license plate number.

During the pursuit the yellow bag was thrown from the car.

McCauley, from Drumdoit, Castlefin, was arrested on January 31st, 2019

He claimed to gardaí he was a professional online gambler who had a lot of loans and mortgages.

Victim Angela McDaid told the court how the blood drained from her face and her stomach churned when she opened the letter at her home.

She said she was most scared by the thought of what would happen to her if she did not comply with the demands.

Ms McDaid said her fear turned to anger at the thought that McCauley felt it was acceptable to send such a letter.

She said “He hid like a coward behind the IRA because he knew that would instil fear. ”

Barrister for McCauley, Mr Shane Costello, SC, said that his client had bizarrely wrongly got it into his head that his family was entitled to some of the money from the land which Ms McDaid had benefited from.

He said his client, who had no previous convictions of any kind, now accepts that was wrong.

Passing sentence, Judge Aylmer said he noted the maximum sentence for such an offence was 14 years in prison and he placed this incident in the mid-range of such offences and that it merited four years in jail.

Because of a number of factors, including sparing the victim a trial by pleading guilty, the judge reduced the sentence to three years with the final 18 monhs suspended.