Garda gets suspended sentence for theft of €700

A 27-year-old Garda convicted of stealing €700 which had been handed in at Sligo Garda station, was yesterday given a two-year suspended sentence.

James Lavelle, Old Quay Court, Sligo, who had been a member of the force since 2000, was also served with his dismissal papers yesterday.

Imposing sentence at Sligo Circuit Court, Judge Anthony Kennedy said an aggravating factor in the case was the fact that the accused was a guard whose job it was to enforce and uphold the law.

The judge also criticised the "full frontal attack" the defence had launched on local man, Liam Henderson jnr, who found the money while walking his dog in Sligo cemetery.

The judge said there had been an insinuation that this "honest and civic-minded" man had a murky past and that he had himself pocketed €300 of the €700 he had found. Mr Henderson had received "quite a drubbing" during protracted cross examination and the attack on his character had been "disgraceful", Judge Kennedy added.

The former garda who had been a plainclothes member of the drug squad in Sligo for a period, had denied stealing €700, the property of Sally Harte, River Road, Cartron Point, at Sligo Garda station on August 26th, 2004. He was convicted by a jury following a three-day trial last October.

At yesterday's hearing , Kerida Naidoo BL, defending, said his client's life was in ruins. "His career is at an end. His reputation is in tatters," counsel added.

During his trial Lavelle said he had been guilty of nothing but sloppiness and not following proper procedures. He insisted that Mr Henderson had handed in only €400 which he said he had returned to Mrs Harte within days.

Mr Henderson had told the court that he found a bundle of fourteen €50 notes in the cemetery which he had first counted out in front of his parents. He had also counted it out at the Garda station for Lavelle who was on duty at the public desk. Mrs Harte had told the jury that she had hidden €700 in an umbrella in her home. Her daughter had put the umbrella in the boot of the car not realising that there was money in it, and she had used it while visiting a friend's grave on the evening of August 26th, 2004.

During the trial it emerged that Lavelle had not recorded the money on the Pulse computer system or in the station receipt book. He said he had tried but failed to log on to the Pulse system and said he could not get the receipt book as it was in the sergeant's office which was locked that night.

Mr Henderson recalled that he had notified the head of the Sligo drug squad, Sgt Connell Lee, about the find, because he had been made aware of drug activity in the local cemetery.

When Sgt Lee checked the computer, there was no record of the cash being handed in but there was a record of a sum of money having been lost at the graveyard.

Judge Kennedy was told yesterday that Lavelle's fiancee was pregnant and that the couple had planned to marry next March but the wedding had been postponed in anticipation of the sentence. Mr Naidoo told the court that the accused had been treated for acute anxiety and depression prior to being convicted.

Mr Naidoo had suggested that as a former member of the drug squad, if jailed, Lavelle would be serving a sentence alongside people he had helped put in prison.

Imposing sentence the judge said he accepted that imprisonment would result in extraordinary hardship for Lavelle "at the hands of other convicts".