A man who preyed on old people living alone has been jailed for three years by Judge Elizabeth Dunne, who said she wanted to give the victims a break.
Christopher Doran pretended variously to be a gas company employee, a waterworks technician or a window-cleaner when he stole sums of between £10 and £1,270 from people living alone.
Doran (49), married with a family, of St Michael's Estate, Inchicore, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to committing the offences in July 1997 and May and July 1998.
Judge Dunne imposed four 18-month sentences, with two of them to run consecutively to make a total of three years' imprisonment.
The court heard Doran pretended to be a window-cleaner when he got away with £40 from one house and £1,270 from another on July 21st last year.
He took £1,000 from a Ballyfermot woman on May 28th, 1998, after getting into her home by asking if he could "test her water" as there was an airlock in the system.
Judge Dunne was told Doran spent some years in Artane Industrial School and had a long history of similar convictions. He did not seem able to control himself and always admitted them.