A man has been jailed for 10 months in connection with stealing the bag of a 60-year-old tourist after she had been knocked down by a bus in O'Connell Street, Dublin, last September and later died of her injuries.
Jonathan Brophy (24), a drug user originally from Hardwicke Street, Dublin, was charged with stealing a handbag, an Irish passport, €1,000 in cash, car and house keys and a Nokia mobile phone from the woman on September 15th last.
Marie Buckland, who was originally from Ireland but had settled in Warwickshire, England, suffered serious head injuries as a result of the accident involving a Dublin Bus vehicle as she and a friend were crossing the road at the Spire monument.
She never regained consciousness and died in hospital just over a week later. Brophy stole two bags from the scene of the accident which were the property of Mrs Brophy and her husband, Colin.
Sgt Brian Cullen arrested Brophy on September 27th and he was charged later that day. He was arrested after staff at a city- centre car park reported suspicious activity to gardaí.
The staff played a CCTV recording of a man walking around the car park.
Gardaí recognised Brophy, who was known to them, and believed he was trying to find the Vauxhall sports car at the car park, the keys of which he had stolen with Mrs Buckland's other belongings.
Brophy was tracked down by gardaí to premises in Bray where he was staying at the time. He appeared before Cloverhill District Court on that occasion and was remanded in custody after the court was told by gardaí that he had previously failed to appear on other charges.
He was sentenced to 10 months in prison yesterday. He is due to appear before the courts again on April 4th next in connection with the possession in Dublin city centre in January 2004 of a small quantity of a controlled drug.