A credit union in Co Leitrim was left with debts of £114,000 after the discovery of a three-month cheque fraud by a local garage-owner, Carrick-on-Shannon Circuit Court was told yesterday. The court heard that the man was still in business selling cars.
John Boyle (32), of Mohill, pleaded guilty to obtaining two cheques under false pretences with a total value of £45,000 with the intention of defrauding Carrick-on-Shannon and District Credit Union. Both cheques were obtained on April 23rd, 1998. The State entered a nolle prosequi on four other counts.
The court was told that had the case gone to trial, it would have taken three weeks to hear and more than 800 exhibits would have been entered.
Mr Alec Owens SC, for the DPP, said the activity related to John Boyle Motors Ltd, between February and April 1998, and involved two bank accounts, one at the ACC in Mohill and one at the Bank of Ireland in Carrick-on-Shannon. He said the business had a "liquidity problem".
Mr Owens said on any one day Mr Boyle would bring cheques drawn on his ACC business account, which had no overdraft facility, to the credit union in Carrick-on-Shannon where he had an account. After lodging his cheques, he would make a withdrawal and leave with credit union cheques.
"These cheques were accepted by the credit union uncleared and the credit union gave its own cheques which were good cheques," Mr Owens said.
Mr Boyle took the credit union cheques to his Bank of Ireland account and used them to buy bank drafts, which he took to the ACC in Mohill.
All transactions occurred in one day, leaving cash in the ACC account. By repeating the process for a slightly larger amount in a few days, the credit union was covering its first cheque with a second one. "It involved transactions on an escalating basis," Mr Owens said. But "inevitably the day of reckoning had to come".
On April 21st the credit union board decided the transactions were "unusual" and told the office manager to stop giving cheques to Mr Boyle, and Mr Boyle was told this. However, two days later Mr Boyle went back to the credit union in Carrick-on-Shannon and managed to lodge two cheques and get two more because the manager was away from the office and an official who was not aware of the instruction dealt with him. The charge before the court yesterday related to those two cheques only.
Mr Owens explained that because those two cheques were the last that were going to be accepted there was "no hope they were going to be honoured".
Det Garda Andrew Brennan, who investigated the matter, said when the credit union decided to stop giving cheques to Mr Boyle the amount outstanding was £114,000. Mr Boyle's company had ceased trading, but he was still selling cars from his parents' home.
After High Court proceedings, the credit union recovered cars from Mr Boyle's business valued at £38,900. A further £8,000 was in a credit union account held by Mr Boyle. The money lost by the credit union was covered by insurance, the court heard.
Mr Frank Martin, defending, said Mr Boyle's business had got into "quite severe difficulties" and the charge was a serious one he had "fallen into unwittingly". It was not in any way a "nest-bedding form of exercise" but he was trying to fund by way of credit a business he had been building up over two years. He said Mr Boyle was trying to build up another motor car business now and he did not have any "crock of gold".
After a request for the case to be adjourned to allow for an examination of how Mr Boyle could try to make repayments, Judge Matthew Deery adjourned sentencing until the next sitting of the court.