A Dublin man convicted of theft was one of a team who came down from the capital to steal from Cork shops, Cork Circuit Criminal Court heard yesterday. Timothy McDonald (41), a machinist, of Sillogue Road, Ballymun, was sentenced to four years jail by Judge A.G. Murphy when a jury found him guilty of stealing 83 items of women's clothing worth £2,500 from Dunnes Stores, Merchant's Quay, Cork, on March 20th last. He had denied the charge.
The court was told that a Roches Stores security officer on a break from work saw thieves taking goods from Dunnes Stores and loading them into a waiting car.
Ms Helen Pierce was walking past the entrance to Dunnes Stores when she saw two women grabbing clothes from rails and putting them, with hangers, into empty Dunnes Stores bags. She said she followed them out of the store and watched as one of them loaded the bags into the boot of a car parked nearby. She then alerted the gardai.
Det Garda Ian Breen said he watched the car pointed out to him by Ms Pierce and saw McDonald approach it twice, open the boot and "pat things down with his hands".
McDonald eventually drove off and Det Garda Breen stopped him and arrested him. In the car's boot were three black refuse sacks full of Dunnes Stores clothing.
McDonald, a separated father of two, said he met a girl called Clare in a Dublin club over the St Patrick's weekend and agreed to meet her in Cork later that week for a day out.
He met her and a friend near Parnell Place and showed them where he had parked the car. After he had something to eat he returned to his car and waited for the two women, but they did not appear and so he drove off and was stopped by the garda.
"I was shocked and surprised to see the bags in my boot. I told him the stuff wasn't mine," the defendant said.
Mr Pat McCarthy BL, for the State, described McDonald's evidence as "a childish cock and bull story" but Mr Gerald Goldberg, for the defendant, said McDonald was a gullible, lonely man who had been set up as a stooge by the two women.
After the jury convicted McDonald of theft, Judge Murphy said that it was clear he was part of a team from which the citizens of Cork had to be protected.