Campaigning mum Margaret pleads guilty to Penneys theft
HOMELESS campaigner Margaret Cash has been placed on a 12-month probation bond after pleading guilty to stealing clothes worth €321 from a Penneys store.
Ms Cash was not present in Tallaght District Court yesterday when the case was first called.
Her defence lawyer Kevin Tunney told Judge Patricia McNamara, presiding, that his client was ‘on the bus’.
Judge McNamara put the case to a second calling by which point the mother of seven was present. She was wearing black boots, grey leggings and a black hoodie which bore a ‘no limits’ logo.
Ms Cash, 28, of Westpark Gate, Tallaght, Dublin 24, had pleaded guilty to stealing the clothes from the Penneys store in Nutgrove Shopping Centre, Rathfarnham, on February 17, 2018. Judge McNamara commented that Ms Cash had 38 previous convictions and was a homeless mother of seven children.
She asked Sgt Michael Ahern if Ms Cash had come to the attention of the gardaí since the incident, to which Sgt Ahern replied: ‘No.’
He said that in relation to the theft from Penneys that the property had not been recovered.
Judge McNamara told Ms Cash: ‘I have read the probation report and I see that there are issues in your background and your personal circumstances which cannot be ignored, but you cannot go around committing thefts.
‘What would happen to your children if you were to go to jail?’
Judge McNamara placed Ms Cash on a probation bond of €100 for 12 months.
Ms Cash hit the headlines during the summer when her children were forced to sleep on chairs in Tallaght Garda station.
Mother of seven had been homeless