A mother-of-two who defrauded shops by claiming refunds on hundreds of euro worth of goods she had just taken off the shelves, was jailed for a month yesterday.
Nicola Walsh (23), Le Fanu Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin, pleaded guilty to eight separate thefts from shops and supermarkets in Dublin, Meath and Louth.
Dublin District Court heard that in October and December last she visited two supermarkets in Blackrock and Cornelscourt and took boxes of wine off the shelves. She went up to the checkouts and said she wanted to return them and received refunds of nearly €170. In November, she did the same thing in a newsagent's store in Clonee, getting a €60 refund.
Last January, she went to a toy store and took toys off the shelves worth just under €200 and went to the checkout where she asked for the manager. She told him she wanted to return the toys because her son had died. She received a full refund. In February, in Fairyhouse, Co Meath, she got €203 from a filling station.
In March, she got €430 from a store in a shopping centre in Drogheda. She returned to the shopping centre later that month and attempted to get €140 before staff realised what she was doing. When she went to another shop in the same centre, security staff detained her.
She was released on bail and in April she defrauded a shop in Killester.
She was arrested in July and has been in custody since August 8th, the court heard. She had 12 previous convictions, mostly for theft, and had carried out these offences to help her then-boyfriend pay off drug debts, her solicitor said. The debts were now paid off and she no longer had any contact with the boyfriend.
Judge Derek McVeigh backdated a one-month prison sentence to August 8th, saying that because she was now drug-free, she deserved some encouragement to stay that way.