Credit union worker stole €395k from customers

A CREDIT union employee who stole up to €395,000 from customers’ accounts will be sentenced in April.

The court heard Susan Redmond, 49, had worked at Larkhill and District Credit Union in Dublin for 20 years and began taking out false loans on members’ accounts in 2003. Redmond completed and signed loan applications and then issued cheques, which she cashed.

Detective Garda Dominic McGrath said Redmond’s colleagues noticed irregularities on accounts while she was on holidays, and an extensive investigation was launched.

Redmond, of Thornville Drive, Kilbarrack, Dublin, signed guilty pleas at Dublin Circuit Court to ten sample charges of stealing from the credit union on dates from July 3, 2003 to April 26, 2013. Detective Garda McGrath said this sample represented 102 theft charges.

He told Barry Ward BL, prosecuting, the 40 account holders affected by Redmond’s thefts were her friends and family and that they were all reimbursed by the credit union. He said none of the account holders made statements to gardaí and were not ‘forthcoming with information’.

The detective agreed with Justin McQuade BL, defending, that this was an ‘unsophisticated’ fraud and that Redmond had nothing to show for it. He further agreed that Redmond had lost a job she took up after leaving the credit union because of publicity from the case. He also told Judge Melanie Greally he didn’t believe any of the account holders affected had been complicit.

Michael Dempsey, a clinical psychologist, told Mr McQuade that Redmond was a vulnerable woman who ‘fit the criteria for compulsive buying disorder’ and was ‘severely depressed’.

Mr McQuade told Judge Greally that Redmond had €20,000 in court as a token of remorse. The judge adjourned the case so that Redmond can be assessed by the Probation Service. She remanded Redmond on continuing bail until April.