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All-Ireland winner fined £100k after admitting converting £1.2m in criminal property

Short played for Crossmaglen Rangers and won three All-Ireland Club championship medals and three Ulster Club medals

Today at 16:35

A former GAA star who pleaded guilty on behalf of his company to converting almost £1.2m in criminal property has been ordered to pay £100,000 in compensation.

Cathal James Short was sentenced at Belfast Crown Court on Wednesday.

Short played for Crossmaglen Rangers and won three All-Ireland Club championship medals and three Ulster Club medals. He also played for the Armagh county team.

The 48-year-old, of The Crescent, Crossmaglen, was due to stand trial in April along with his company C Short Ltd.

But before it started, Short, as the only director of C Short Ltd, was re-arraigned on the single count the company faced, and pleaded guilty to the company converting criminal property.

The charge stated that between June 9, 2010 and March 20, 2012, C Short Ltd “converted £1,188,520 or thereabouts, which they knew or suspected, constituted or represented in whole or in part, benefit from criminal conduct or represented such a benefit”.None of the facts were opened in court today.

But a previous court hearing revealed that between 2009 and 2012, an organised crime gang was responsible for a tax fraud which exploited the Construction Industry Scheme to enable subcontractors to evade the payment of tax.The court said C Short Ltd was a Money Service Business and the offending related to the cashing of cheques for and on behalf of various Belfast-based construction contractors.

Cathal Short was not charged with conspiracy to cheat the public revenue but with two counts under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, namely converting criminal property and failing to disclose money laundering by a nominated officer.

The money laundering charge was later dismissed by Mr Justice Colton and Short pleaded not guilty to converting criminal property.

At the brief Crown Court hearing today, Judge Kerr said it was agreed by all parties that the best way to dispose of the case was through a “civil penalty”.

The judge added that in those circumstances he would make a compensation order against C Short Ltd in the sum of £100,000. He also imposed a conditional discharge of two years.

At the request of defence counsel Liam McCollum KC, Judge Kerr ordered that a charge of converting criminal property levelled against Cathal Short as an individual be “left on the books”.