CASH GRAB | 

Dublin man found guilty of stealing €4k in cash from car parked at Wexford hotel

Bernard Joyce (23) was remanded on bail to appear for sentencing on June 28.

Today at 10:22

The perils of withdrawing large quantities of cash from a bank were underlined as Wexford Circuit Court dealt with a theft prosecution.

A jury of three men and nine women unanimously convicted Bernard Joyce (23) of stealing €4,000 in €50 notes from a car parked at the Ferrycarrig Hotel.

They reached their decision after viewing and re-viewing CCTV footage from the hotel’s security system dating back to January 17 in 2020.

That was the date on which Coolcotts resident Ger O’Brien went to the Bank of Ireland branch in Enniscorthy.

He gave evidence of how he took out the €4,000 in a white, self-sealing envelope, intending to buy himself a car over the weekend.

While in the bank he felt that he was being watched and he noticed the accused was behind him in the queue.

In defending the case, Joyce fully accepted that he was the person seen in the bank’s CCTV leaning against a wall.

However, he denied being a passenger in a dark Volkswagen that followed the injured party to the Ferrycarrig.

Once at the hotel, O’Brien parked the red Toyota Auris he was driving and went into the hotel’s gym.

When he emerged an hour later, he discovered that a rear window had been broken in the Auris.

The enveloped he had concealed in the console beside the gear stick was gone.

The theft was investigated by Garda Eddie Nolan who identified the Volkswagen 04OY1596 as being registered to a man called Kelly at Moyne Park, Raheny in Dublin.

However, colleagues in Dublin informed him that no one of that name was residing at the address in question.

Garda Nolan had more luck when it came to identifying the man in the bank queue wearing a black jacket.

This was Bernard Joyce from Barnfield Road in Kilbarrack, Dublin.

The garda called to the house in Barnfield Road with a search warrant and he seized the defendant’s iPhone, though Joyce refused to tell him the PIN.

The jury was sent to deliberate and spent an hour before lunch considering the matter without coming to a conclusion.

After the lunch break they asked to see footage of the car leaving the hotel which they were shown in slow motion.

While the face of the driver remained in shadow, most of the face of the passenger was picked out in winter sun on the screens in the courtroom.

Two minutes after they returned to their deliberations, the jury came back to tell Judge James McCourt they had reached agreement.

They found the defendant guilty of theft and guilty of criminal damage to the Auris.

Joyce was remanded on bail to appear for sentencing on June 28.