Three months for woman who stole from Tullow shop to feed ‘significant’ addiction
Carlow Courthouse
A WOMAN who stole to feed a “significant crack cocaine and heroin addiction” and who has 111 previous convictions was handed a three-month sentence at a recent sitting of Carlow District Court. Jessie Connell (29) of no fixed abode, currently serving a sentence in the Dóchas Centre, pleaded guilty through her solicitor Chris Hogan to the theft of goods worth €80 from a shop in Tullow.
The court heard that at 4.44pm on 22 January, a report was made to gardaí of a theft of goods to the value of €80 from the shop. The goods were not recovered and Ms Connell was identified from CCTV footage.
Ms Connell has 111 previous convictions, the most recent from Carlow District Court in March for section 4 theft, for which she received eight months’ imprisonment. She also received a nine-month suspended sentence for an additional theft matter of the same nature.
In mitigation, Mr Hogan said: “I dealt with her on the last occasion. This is in relation to a spate of offences in and around the same time.”
He told the court that his client has a significant crack cocaine and heroin addiction and had been stealing to fund it. He said Ms Connell was now drug-free in the Dóchas Centre, where she has a job, and has six months of her sentence left to serve, with accommodation lined up on her release.
Mr Hogan said his client had pleaded at the earliest opportunity and asked the judge for leniency.
Judge Marian Walsh convicted Ms Connell and sentenced her to three months’ imprisonment to run concurrently from 1 July, noting that the sentence “will be gobbled up in the grand scheme of things”.
