Jury discharged in trial of nurse charged over €11,000 theft from elderly patient

A jury in the trial of a public health nurse accused of stealing more than €11,000 from an elderly widow she was caring for, was on Thursday discharged from the case over legal issues.

Deirdre Kenneally (47) from Leitrim, Kilworth, Co Cork, was remanded on continuing bail.

She had denied a total of 62 charges that she stole money, totalling more than €11,000 from Alice Twomey of Kilcor, Castlelyons, and denied that she used a computer or caused a computer to be used to transfer money between accounts belonging to Ms Twomey.

But on Thursday, on the sixth day of the trial, Judge Gerard O'Brien told the jury of seven men and five women he was discharging them over a legal issue that had arisen. He remanded Ms Kenneally on continuing bail to appear at the next criminal sessions of Cork Circuit Criminal Court in May.

Owed to her

Earlier, Ms Kenneally told the jury she had never taken anything dishonestly from Ms Twomey. She said the money she had taken was money that was owed to her by Ms Twomey after they came to the arrangement that she would provide her with private nursing care outside of her work as a HSE nurse.

She told the trial they had come to a private arrangement that Ms Twomey would pay her €300 a week for 10 hours of care in the evenings and at weekends when she was finished with her regular work as a HSE community nurse in north Cork.