Charity manager spent €2,700 on a ‘found’ BT voucher

A FORMER manager of a Cork city charity ended up spending over €2,700 from a Brown Thomas voucher which she found in a car park, a court heard last week.

Catriona Hennessy (42) of Dun Caura, Carrigroe, Clonakilty pleaded guilty at Clonakilty District Court to theft and handling stolen property.

Sgt Tom Mulcahy told Judge James McNulty that on July 13th 2022, Eithne Barry attended Anglesea Street Garda Station in Cork city to report that a Brown Thomas voucher of hers worth €3,000 had been stolen with €2,721.60 of it having been spent on online transactions.

‘The stolen voucher was used three times to purchase items online and €2,721.60 worth of goods were delivered to the accused’s home,’ said Sgt Mulcahy.

The court heard that on January 20th last year, gardaí carried out a search of the accused’s home and recovered €2,083.65 worth of goods which were not returnable.

Defence solicitor Conrad Murphy said his client, who is married with two young children and who has never been in court before and has no previous convictions, had been working as a manager at a senior level for a charitable organisation.

‘She found the voucher in the car park outside the building and over a two-week period she did ask all 14 people working there if they had lost a voucher. No one said they had,’ said Mr Murphy.

‘The injured party had worked there previously and had been in and out of the building at the time but didn’t work there full-time.’

Judge McNulty asked if it ever occurred to the accused to contact Brown Thomas directly and give them the details in an effort to trace the owner of the voucher.

‘She made all those enquiries but not the obvious one,’ he remarked.

Mr Murphy said some of the voucher had been spent before his client found it but she has produced a bank draft for €3,000 to be given to Eithne Barry. He added that she is extremely distressed about what happened.

‘The ramifications from this are extremely significant. She resigned from her job immediately as there was no way back from that. She is out of work now and it was a good job. If she ends up with a conviction the type of jobs she would be looking for would be very difficult to get.’

Judge McNulty said the court will have to determine the penalty noting she will receive credit for her early plea, and the fact that she has no previous convictions. ‘She has paid a heavy price for her dishonesty by losing her job.’

He remanded her on continuing bail to appear in court again on June 4th and directed the probation service prepare a probation report.