A 26-year-old mother of six from Romania who tried to steal a safe containing €9,500 from the sitting room of a rural post office near the Cavan/Westmeath border was jailed for two years yesterday.
However 15 months of the sentence were suspended by the Judge Michael White because of the hardship it would impose on the children of Marinela Sardaru. One of the children has special needs.
Sardaru of Dolphin's Barn, Dublin, was convicted of the burglary by a jury at Westmeath Circuit Court last month and was remanded in custody for sentencing by the judge who was sitting in Dundalk Circuit Court yesterday.
A report by the Probation and Welfare Service described her as a mother who cares deeply for her children. The eldest is 10 years old and the youngest was newborn at the time of the crime.
The trial heard that on August 13th, 2005, she was part of a group that went into the sub-post office in Finea. Sixty-two-year-old Vincent Gaffney and his wife Joan were helping their daughter who ran the post office.
The group distracted the couple and Sardaru went into the sitting room of the living quarters where Mr Gaffney found her trying to steal the safe. She was attempting to conceal the safe, which was small, underneath a number of long skirts.
Gardaí were called and she was arrested. At the time she had a newborn infant with her that she was breast-feeding but she had given the child to another member of the group.
Judge White was told she still denied involvement in the robbery but acknowledged she had bitten Mr Gaffney despite the jury acquitting her of that charge.
At the time she was on probation for another offence but her intention is not to offend again her barrister told the court.
The court also heard that her time in custody awaiting sentence had caused enormous upset to her children.
The judge said she had shown a total lack of respect for her children by doing what she did and the major mitigating factor in sentencing was the impact it would have on them.