A TEENAGER, who was yesterday found guilty of trespassing at the home of a 78-year-old woman, has been remanded on bail pending sentence.
The defendant, with an address at Clondalkin in Dublin, was a juvenile at the time of her arrest but had turned 18 by the time of her hearing at the Children’s Court yesterday.
She pleaded not guilty to trespassing with intent to put fear in another, at the pensioner’s home, at Church Road, in Malahide, in north Co Dublin, on March 18th.
The complainant told Judge Clare Leonard that the defendant had been repeatedly calling to her home which is connected to a house belonging to her sister, who is in her eighties.
She said that she heard her sister speaking to the accused and went around and told her to leave.
The teenager remained in the driveway despite being told repeatedly to get out. “She just shrugged her shoulders and said so what,” the woman alleged.
The woman said that the teenager had called to her home numerous times over the last four to five years and on each occasion had been told not to come back.
The victim told prosecuting garda Suzanne Lavin that “I have seen her in the past looking in the windows if the door was not answered, she could be up to anything.” The defendant was arrested when the victim called gardaí, who arrived within minutes. The victim agreed that the defendant had often been asking for food. She said that on previous occasions when asked to leave the defendant would do so “but the thing is she kept coming back”.
Det Garda Gerry McNally told Judge Leonard that the injured party was in a very “distressed state” when he arrived at her home. The teenager had been previously warned that she was not welcome at the elderly lady’s home, the court was told.
Garda McNally said this was because the victim was in fear. He said the teenager was known for “getting into elderly people’s homes, preying on the elderly”.
The court heard that four weeks prior to the incident, gardaí had told the teenager that she was not welcome at the victim’s address.
The teenager told counsel, defending, that she had been allowed into the victim’s sister’s home when she asked for a biscuit, a drink of water and to use the toilet. She agreed that she had been begging and claimed that she had been making her way out of the driveway when gardaí arrived.
The judge convicted the defendant, saying there was evidence that the victim was afraid.
The teenager had four prior convictions for theft, burglary, trespassing and conducting a collection without a permit. The judge adjourned sentencing until next month.