A former Bank of Ireland employee who stole almost \u20ac200,000 from a midlands branch and its customers before attempting to set the building on fire showed a \u201ctotal disregard\u201d for public safety and should not have received a fully suspended sentence, the Director of Public Prosecutions has argued.<\/p>\n
Maureen McCormack, 53, maintained she stole the money to pay for debts incurred for IVF treatment.<\/p>\n
She tried to set fire to the bank when she learned the branch was closing, fearing an examination of the accounts would bring her offending to light. McCormack has since paid back more than half the money.<\/p>\n
McCormack of Esker, Banagher, Co Offaly, pleaded guilty to arson at the Bank of Ireland branch in the town on October 6, 2021.<\/p>\n
She also entered guilty pleas to three theft charges, including the theft of about \u20ac145,000 in cash which was the property of Bank of Ireland between January 1, 2017, and October 6, 2021. She further admitted stealing money to the approximate value of \u20ac33,419.50 from two individuals on December 2, 2013, and stealing \u20ac21,008.24 from two others on November 7, 2016.<\/p>\n
McCormack was sentenced to 240 hours of community service in lieu of four years in prison in respect of the arson charge and a sentence of four years in prison suspended for a period of six years in relation to one of the theft charges by Judge Keenan Johnson at Tullamore Circuit Court in October 2024.<\/p>\n
Imposing sentence, Judge Johnson noted: \u201cIt does appear to have been a desperate attempt on her part to cover her tracks when she engaged in an act of arson.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawyers for the DPP on Tuesday argued the custodial threshold had clearly been passed and the fully suspended sentence represented a substantial departure from the norm, encompassing no element of deterrence. They said the crime had involved \u201cplanning and manipulation\u201d and McCormack had shown a total disregard for the safety of her colleagues and the public by starting a fire to \u201cdestroy and conceal evidence\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, McCormack\u2019s legal team said the former bank employee had made restitution for a large portion of what was owed by cashing in her pension and the judge was entitled to use his discretion in fully suspending the four-year sentence. Submissions made to the court record McCormack has paid over \u20ac115,886.82 in compensation.<\/p>\n
The incident came to light on October 6, 2021, when emergency services were called to the Bank of Ireland branch in Banagher about 1pm. A fire had broken out in a storeroom, and evidence of a second fire was found inside the bank\u2019s safe, but this had extinguished itself due to a lack of oxygen.<\/p>\n
The damage to the building was estimated to be \u20ac10,000.<\/p>\n
Following the fire, bank officials noted the safe should have contained \u20ac169,160, but an inspection of the vault revealed it only contained \u20ac23,665, leaving a shortfall of \u20ac145,495.<\/p>\n
Garda\u00ed spoke to McCormack, who told them she had locked the safe at 4.30pm the previous day, at which time it contained \u20ac169,160. She said she called the fire brigade during her lunch break after learning the building was on fire, but claimed she did not know how the fire had started.<\/p>\n
Upon reviewing CCTV footage, garda\u00ed observed McCormack entering the vault on several occasions before the fire was reported and noted she was the last person to leave it at 12.23 pm, approximately half an hour before emergency services were contacted.<\/p>\n
McCormack was arrested two days later and, while being transported to the Garda station, voluntarily admitted to taking money from the bank safe over a period of time to pay off debts. She made further admissions during three subsequent interviews, confessing to the theft and to starting the fires.<\/p>\n
Bringing an application seeking a review of the sentence on the grounds it was unduly lenient, Kevin White BL, for the DPP, said the case involved numerous incidents of offending with large sums stolen.<\/p>\n
Mr White said there was \u201cplanning and manipulation\u201d involved, and McCormack had a position of trust and standing in the community when she defrauded her employer, Bank of Ireland, and its customers.<\/p>\n
The barrister said those factors alone should have resulted in a sentence, but the arson \u201caggravated and elevated\u201d the offending.<\/p>\n
McCormack had shown a \u201ctotal disregard\u201d for the wellbeing and safety of her colleagues and members of the public by starting the fires in an attempt to \u201cdestroy and conceal evidence\u201d, the barrister added.<\/p>\n
Mr White said there was an assertion that McCormack fell into this because of bills incurred for IVF treatment. He said the cost of the IVF was just over \u20ac22,000 between 2004 and 2014 and the offending continued \u201cwell beyond the need of that\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe sentencing judge took the view \u2014 I say wrongly \u2014 that she didn\u2019t personally profit from this. You couldn\u2019t possibly take that view when you look at the amount owed, the cost of the IVF and how long it continued after. It simply doesn\u2019t add up,\u201d said Mr White.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe should not have reduced in the way that he did on foot of that assertion.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
In relation to the theft charges, Mr White said having identified a headline of six years for two of the charges with the other two taken into consideration, there was \u201cno way you could get to the point of reducing a four-year sentence down to nought\u201d.<\/p>\n
The barrister said the threshold warranting a custodial sentence had clearly been passed and \u201ca non-custodial sentence simply wasn\u2019t an option\u201d. He said it was \u201cclear as day\u201d that what had been handed down by the judge represented a substantial departure from the norm. \u201cThere\u2019s no deterrent here,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
In response, McCormack\u2019s senior counsel Roderick O\u2019Hanlon said the mitigation in the case was \u201csubstantial\u201d. McCormack had cashed in her pension to pay for some of the money stolen and had entered a guilty plea at an early stage, said counsel.<\/p>\n
This was behaviour which had \u201csimply spiralled out of control\u201d, Mr O\u2019Hanlon said, going on to note that an attempt was made to \u201cburn the evidence\u201d once it became clear that the branch was closing, which would trigger an examination of the accounts and ultimately expose McCormack\u2019s wrongdoing.<\/p>\n
Mr O\u2019Hanlon said the judge had acknowledged that, under normal circumstances, the nature of the offending would warrant a custodial sentence. However, after considering all mitigating factors, including McCormack\u2019s decision to cash in her pension, the judge exercised his discretion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added the Court of Appeal had previously recognised that sentencing judges have \u201csubstantial discretion\u201d when dealing with cases involving \u201cexceptional circumstances\u201d.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mr Justice John Edwards said the court would reserve judgment in the case and deliver its decision at a later date.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Bank of Ireland employee who stole almost \u20ac200,000 from a midlands branch and its customers before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,27,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-137446","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-courts","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}