Garda\u00ed<\/a> became aware in mid-2023 that McAuley was alive and began an investigation. They discovered three death notices on <\/b>RIP.ie. One stated McAuley had died in France while a second was added by a fictitious undertaker she had created.<\/p>\nMcAuley told garda\u00ed when interviewed that she knew she was in trouble again, could not face coming to court and did not want to leave her young child.<\/p>\n
She also stole over \u20ac55,000 from an employer in 2015 \u2013 \u20ac6,500 of which was repaid \u2013 and over \u20ac3,000 worth of mobile phones from Three Ireland in 2021.<\/p>\n
During the investigation, it came to light that McAuley had also told her employer in 2023 that she had died. <\/p>\n
While a claim for the company\u2019s death in service benefit was pending, McAuley, again pretending to be a sister, contacted the company claiming that money was required for surgery for the defendant\u2019s young child. The company then made a goodwill payment of \u20ac9,000.<\/p>\n
The court heard McAuley acted alone and there is no evidence she had been living a lavish lifestyle.<\/p>\n
Imposing sentence on Thursday, Judge Orla Crowe said this was \u201cnot opportunistic or spontaneous\u201d offending, but a \u201cdeliberately planned deception\u201d involving significant breaches of trust.<\/p>\n
The judge said McAuley faking her death to avoid a court case was a \u201cdeliberate scheme to pervert the course of justice\u201d.<\/p>\n
She noted her offending took place over a \u201cprotracted period of time\u201d, was intentional and required \u201csubstantial planning\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said the amount of money involved and McAuley\u2019s previous convictions were also aggravating factors. The court was told the majority of the money stolen has not been repaid.<\/p>\n
The judge noted the mitigating factors including McAuley\u2019s guilty pleas, expressions of remorse, family support and medical and mental health difficulties.<\/p>\n
She imposed a global sentence of four years and suspended the final 12 months on strict conditions for four years.<\/p>\n
McAuley has a young child, who has health issues, and she herself has medical and mental health difficulties including schizo-affective disorder. She is also pregnant with her second child.<\/p>\n
Rebecca Smith BL, defending, told the court earlier this month that the probation report was positive, and handed in further medical reports and updated letters from McAuley, her husband and family members.<\/p>\n
Ms Smith told the court in May this was an \u201cextraordinarily complex case\u201d and her client had engaged in a \u201csignificant period of offending\u201d. She said McAuley was living a \u201ccrazy, chaotic existence\u201d, which has now stabilised.<\/p>\n
Counsel said her client is apologetic, aware that \u201cher past is catching up to her\u201d. <\/p>\n
Ms Smith submitted to the court her client will have \u201cno real prospect\u201d of future employment, suggesting money could be deducted from social welfare payments.<\/p>\n
McAuley has four previous convictions for theft and deception offences. She received a sentence of two years, suspended for 10 years in November 2015 for the theft of just under \u20ac111,000 from a former employer. She repaid \u20ac30,000 on the day of sentence but the balance is outstanding, the court previously heard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A woman who faked her own death in a \u201cdeliberate scheme\u201d to avoid a trial has been jailed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[956,9,10,24443,52,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,2451,4773],"class_list":{"0":"post-153597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-circuit-court","12":"tag-dublin","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-wexford","27":"tag-wexford-county-council"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115463926865667795","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153597","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=153597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}