Man stole gravestones and then sold them to grieving family
MARK HOWELL, WHO ALREADY HAD 117 PREVIOUS CONVICTIONS, CARRIED OUT ‘UNBELIEVABLY MEAN AND DESPICABLE CRIME’
A MID-CORK man has been jailed for what a judge described as “an unbelievably mean and despicable crime” in which he desecrated and damaged two graves in West Cork when stealing a religious statue and stone shelf to use to complete a grave for another family elsewhere.
Mark Howell (39) a native of Grenagh, pleaded guilty to charges of criminal damage and theft arising out of the garda investigation into the desecration of two graves at St Mary’s Cemetery, Clonakilty, on August 8, 2017.
Garda Peter Nolan told Cork Circuit Criminal Court how Howell, who was living at Railway Court, McCurtain Hill, Clonakilty, at the time, was operating a business installing headstones and maintaining graves which he advertised as ‘West Cork Grave and Headstone Maintenance’.
He told how on the evening of August 9th 2017, a 72 year old widow went to St Mary’s Cemetery in Clonakilty to visit the grave of her husband who had died in 2011 only to discover that the headstone had been damaged and a religious statue stolen.
“She visits the grave several times daily to pray and on the evening in question, she observed damage to the headstone in that a solid bronze statue of Our Lady which had been mounted and firmly attached to a stone shelf on the headstone had been broken from the headstone and stolen,” the court heard.
The woman noticed that the statue of Our Lady, which was valued at €430, had been replaced with a statue of Padre Pio which had been taken from an adjacent grave belonging to her brother whose wife had died in 2009 and where she noticed a stone shelf had been removed from the headstone.
Gardai were called and a team was appointed by Supt Ger O’Mahony to investigate the theft and damage to the headstones, which had led to a lot of concern in the local community with families calling late at night to check on the graves of loved ones amid fears of further desecration.
Garda Nolan said that both damaged headstones and graves were examined and fingerprinted and as a result of inquiries, Gardai located a grave in the cemetery at the Church of The Immaculate Conception in Enniskeane some 15kms away.
The grave belonged to the family of an elderly man who had passed away in 2016 and they found a statue and shelf identical to those stolen from Clonakilty and established that
72 YEAR OLD WIDOW WHOSE HUSBAND’S GRAVE WAS DESECRATED FELT AS THOUGH “SHE HAD LOST HER HUSBAND FOR A SECOND TIME
the work had been carried out by Howell trading as West Cork Grave and Headstone Maintenance.
The statue and shelf were identified by the Clonakilty families and Gardai arrested Howell on September 11, 2017. When questioned, he made full admissions to the criminal damage and theft and offered his apologies to the families affected.
Garda Nolan said the 72 year old widow whose husband’s grave was desecrated felt as though “she had lost her husband for a second time”. She cried daily for weeks and felt unable to visit the grave by night as she had done before.
Her brother, whose wife’s grave was also damaged, also used to attend the grave daily but both he and his adult children were deeply hurt by the damage done to the headstone. “They feel it’s a complete intrusion on their privacy and grief,” said Garda Nolan
Meanwhile the family from Enniskeane, where Howell used the stolen items, were “absolutely horrified to think that stolen items were brought to a graveyard on their behalf – they feel they have been conned and are hugely embarrassed by what happened,” he added.
Judge Sean O Donnabhain said that Howell, who had 117 previous convictions, including 57 for theft, was guilty of a particularly vile crime which had caused huge distress to the three families who had suffered family bereavements and were mourning loved ones when he struck.
“This was an unbelievably mean and despicable crime – it was on a level hard to imagine that anyone would go to a graveyard to damage headstones and not just damage them but damage them for profit by stealing from two graves and then using these items on another grave.”
He noted that Howell had shown some level of remorse before he sentenced him to two years in prison for criminal damage and theft. He suspended the final six months on condition that Howell keep the peace and be of good behaviour for 12 months.