A Kerry publican has told a jury he lied to gardaí about the real value of his €51,000 loss in a burglary because he did not want the taxman to know how much money he actually had.
Mr Jeremiah Griffin (70), Castlemaine, told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court: "I did not want them to tell them I had so much money or the taxman would take it."
Ms Margaret Doherty and Ms Nora O'Reilly, of Kilbarry, Co Waterford, both deny committing burglary at the premises on August 22nd, 1999. Det Gda Michael O'Sullivan from Waterford Garda station said he arrested Ms Doherty three days later after "confidential information from a reliable source" that she was involved in the robbery.
He said she denied being in Kerry that weekend, claiming instead to have been at a car-boot sale in Waterford where she bought "a pink jumper from a washerwoman called Debbie".
Det Gda O'Sullivan said a search of Ms Doherty's caravan yielded no evidence to link her to the burglary and he did not look for "Debbie" to find out whether the claim was true. He didn't know she was four months pregnant at the time. Mr Griffin told the jury he had a bank account but said he kept the €51,000 in a wardrobe in his bedroom in a plastic bag. Mr Griffin agreed, in cross-examination by Mr Donagh McDonagh SC, for Ms Doherty, that he initially told gardaí he had lost €35,000, not €51,000.
He told Mr Barry White SC, counsel for Ms O'Reilly, that he would add money to the bag whenever there was brisk trade at the pub. He said he was unsure when he last counted the money or added to it. He agreed with Mr White that he told gardaí he made the last addition to the bag four days before the alleged burglary.
He also agreed the burglars came into his premises through the pub lounge, had gone into his bedroom, taken the key to the closet from the locker beside his bed, opened the closet and taken the money. They had not touched anything else.
But he denied Mr White's suggestion that the money could have been taken by someone who had "inside knowledge". The hearing continues in legal argument before Judge Yvonne Murphy.