A roofer has been found guilty of scamming €3,000 from an 84-year-old woman for unnecessary work at her north Dublin cottage.
John McCarthy jnr (21), with an address at the Lane, College Farm, Newbridge, Co Kildare, was convicted by Judge John Brennan of theft from Kathleen Byrne on November 3rd in 2014, a charge he had denied.
He faced trial at Dublin District Court during which the pensioner said she was intimidated and brought by the roofer to the her local post office to withdraw the cash from her savings.
An engineer also told the court the work McCarthy said he would carry out at her Raheny cottage was not needed.
The court heard McCarthy claimed he went to a building supplier which was a 15-minute drive away but after two hours he had still not returned.
Judge Brennan said it was a “quite despicable” act. Ms Byrne was vulnerable, living on her own and had €3,000 extracted from her in circumstances where no documentary evidence such as receipts or quotations were provided, said the judge.
He also said she was not given any time to consider her options and she was “ferried” to the post office to get the money.
Judge Brennan adjourned sentencing until a date in March to allow for a pre-sentence probation report on McCarthy as well as a victim impact statement to be prepared.
The court heard Ms Byrne lived in thatched cottage which also had a flat roof over extensions to the property. She told prosecuting solicitor Stephanie O’Brien that “two well dressed lads” arrived and she thought they were “good fellas”.
Work nearby
They said they had been doing work in a house nearby and had seen her roof and that it was dirty and mossy.
They offered to clean it for €120 and she asked for advice from her friend and neighbour Ciarán Coates who came over and told her it was a good deal and he then left.
She told them they could clean the roof and another van pulled up and workers got on to her roof. After about 20 minutes the defendant came down and told her “the whole roof is broke you can see the boards and the felt is gone”.
At first she was quoted €2,000, then the price went up to €3,000 and then to €4,000 to replace the roof and she said she could not afford that.
McCarthy, who worked for his father’s firm, said he would bring her into Raheny village post office and she got into his van and he drove her.
After handing over the €3,000, Ms Byrne said they drove her back to her house and when they arrived the men said the work was done “but it was not done, I looked behind me and they were gone”.
Mr Coates told the court that when he returned to check on his neighbour he heard that the job had changed and told her that didn’t sound right and to get a second opinion. She told him it was too late.
Two foreign men had been left working on the roof with blow torches and could not answer him when he asked them questions, and he then called the Garda.
Gardaí later carried out checks and discovered that the firm, AA Advanced Roofing and Guttering Contracts, was not a registered company.