A former clerical officer with the Health Service Executive who admitted stealing more than €146,000 from her employers has been sentenced to two years in prison.
Cara Canavan (33), the mother of two small children, had told Sligo Circuit Court that she was a manic depressive who became elated after going on shopping sprees. She wept after the sentence was handed down. She had pleaded guilty to 15 sample charges from 90 original counts.
Canavan, of Springfield, Riverstown, Co Sligo, told the court that she used to experience periods of depression but became "excited and giddy" after each shopping expedition. She spent money on clothes, handbags, make-up and toys for her children but had never worn many of the items, which she hid in a locked bedroom in her home.
The court heard Canavan created 44 fictitious payments on the computer at work. From December 2003 to January 2005, she created payments totalling more than €151,000 but three cheques were not cashed and the amount involved was €146,063.
Last month she pleaded guilty to nine sample counts, involving more than €28,000, as well as five counts of unlawful use of a computer and one charge of attempting to steal more than €3,650.
Canavan said she was a manic depressive and had at one stage considered suicide.
Judge Anthony Kennedy said that the fact that she had got away with this for more than a year could mean that her employer's security system was inadequate or that the fraud was too sophisticated to rumble.
He said a sentence had to act as a deterrent not just for the accused person but for others who might commit a similar crime.
The judge had earlier been told that the "complex, well thought- out, well-executed fraud" came to light after her father-in-law raised the alarm. Seán Canavan became suspicious after a HSE cheque for €5,919 made out to his son Adrian was sent to his house in January 2005.
He alerted gardaí. Det Garda John Molloy said that Canavan became aware that staff in the HSE's accounts payable department in Markievicz House, Sligo, used the same password.
Each time she created a fictitious payment, she logged off the computer and logged on again using her supervisor's password to fraudulently get her supervisor's authority for the transaction.
The 42 cheques at the centre of what Colm Smyth SC, defending, described as "a well-orchestrated and complex scam" were lodged into a joint account which Canavan held with her husband. Large sums from the account were paid into credit cards.
Canavan said her husband did not know about the lodgments and was devastated. She said she suffered from bipolar effective disorder and would become elated after shopping sprees.
The court was told of efforts to remortgage the couple's home, worth an estimated €200,000 to €250,000. So far €7,000 had been paid back to the HSE.
