A "Walter Mitty" character who tried to get £30,000 in personal loans from the National Irish Bank (NIB) using false details when he was 18 years old has been given a 2 1/2-year suspended sentence by Judge Kevin Haugh.
Garda Val Gaye said that when Rory O'Neill realised the bank had discovered he was a fake he put his hands up in surrender and shouted: "It's all false."
O'Neill (20), single and employed, The Grove, Celbridge, Co Kildare pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to intent to defraud, larceny and falsely obtaining money. Defence counsel Mr Ben Garvey said O'Neill was only 18 when the offences occurred and was a "Walter Mitty" type character who would often tell one story, but another would turn out to be the reality.
He said O'Neill was the eldest of four children who came from a very depressive family background in which his now deceased father was "a chronic alcoholic, a tyrant and a bully" who had a history of assaulting gardai.
Garda Philip Tivnan told prosecuting counsel Mr Conor Devally that on June 24th, 1997, O'Neill obtained a £15,000 personal loan from the NIB in Swords under a false name. A total of £7,000 was in Irish pounds and the balance in a sterling draft. The bank manager handed the money over to him after he had provided a fictitious name, "David Ross", and a false address in Celbridge.
O'Neill was highly computer-literate and in a statement made to gardai admitted spending hours at an Internet cafe to generate documentation to acquire a loan by fraudulent means. This included P60 forms, payslips, NIB header forms and a bank statement from a false company named "Akra Construction".
Garda Tivnan said at the time O'Neill was "riding the stock market" and owed another man a sum of money after he lost on an investment. The night he received the loan he planned to catch the ferry to England to compensate him. The bank became suspicious of "David Ross" and checked the details provided before calling in the Garda. O'Neill's image was later identified on the bank's security video. Garda Tivnan said a total of £14,400 of the loan was recovered and gardai have since received the remaining £600 from O'Neill.
Garda Gaye told Mr Devally that two months later on August 1st, 1997, O'Neill made another attempt to obtain a £15,000 loan from the NIB in Balbriggan. He said O'Neill submitted false documents he had composed himself, posing as a company called "GAST Computers". The bank soon discovered he was a fake and his application was unsuccessful.
Garda Gaye said O'Neill was very intelligent. He got nine honours in the Junior Certificate and left for England where he worked for the Italian stock market as an intermediary. He recently returned to Ireland to live. He said O'Neill was a man who lived life "in the fast lane" beyond his means. He sported a BMW 7 series car with English plates as well as an Alfa Romeo.
Mr Garvey said the reason O'Neill required a loan was to pay a number of family household bills that were overdue and he felt "totally and utterly frustrated at home". O'Neill is now employed to price jobs in a construction firm.
Asked by Judge Haugh where O'Neill got his money for the BMW, Mr Garvey said his grandfather was "quite well off". Judge Haugh remarked that this was a tragic case due to O'Neill's unhappy childhood but he found it peculiar that he had re-offended two months after his first foray.
He took into consideration the fact that he was a first offender and had pleaded guilty from an early stage. He said it was with considerable reluctance that he was not imposing a custodial sentence. He imposed an 18-month and a 12-month suspended sentence, to run consecutively.