OAP predator conned €700 from retired Newmarket GP
WITH 109 CONVICTION, JOHN ‘BUDDY’ O’BRIEN GETS NINE MONTHS JAIL
A RETIRED Newmarket GP was conned out of €700 in cash by a career criminal who ‘made a living’ out of preying on old age pensioners.
This week at Mallow court, John ‘Buddy’ O’Brien – who already had 109 convictions – received a nine months jail sentence for robbing Dr Jack Bourke in the car park of SuperValu in Newmarket in January of last year. “He showed me an identification document and a badge,” said Dr Bourke. “He asked me had I any notes on me because there were a lot of forged notes going around ... I took out €700 that I had on me and he said he wanted to take a look at them to see if they were forged notes ... the minute he got them in his hands he was gone,” said Dr Bourke.
A 41 year old career criminal got another nine months in jail this week after he was convicted of stealing €700 from a retired North Cork GP.
The retiree (97) was duped into handing over the cash after he was approached by a (apparently) ‘plain clothes Garda’ who said he was checking to see if the notes were forged.
John ‘Buddy’ O’Brien, a native of Clash Road, Abbeyfeale, Co Limerick but with an address at Barrack St, Waterford, had denied charges of stealing €700 from Dr Jack Bourke and impersonating a member of An Garda Siochana at O’Keeffe’s Supervalu Car Park in Newmarket on January 19, 2017.
And following a near four-hour hearing at Mallow District Court, Judge Brian Sheridan dismissed the impersonation case against O’Brien, saying he had a doubt. However, the judge said the state had proved the theft case against O’Brien and he sentenced him to nine months in jail.
Dr Burke told the court that he had gone to do his shopping at Supervalu at around 4pm on the day in question and as he was walking from his car towards the rear shop entrance with his shopping trolley a man drove into the car park in a dark-coloured car and beckoned him to approach him.
“As I passed he said he wanted to see me for a minute. He said there was some trouble with notes. He said he was a police man and he showed me an identification document and a badge,” said Dr Bourke, adding he couldn’t remember exactly whether the man said he was a policeman or a bank official.
“He asked me had I any notes on me because there were a lot of forged notes going around ... I took out €700 that I had on me - €700 in €50s and a couple of €20s - and he said he wanted to take a look at them to see if they were forged notes, and the minute he got them in his hands he was gone,” said Dr Bourke
The man was well dressed with a tweed jacket, a grey shirt and a tie and was in his mid-40s and of stocky build with dark hair and was well spoken, and the car was a dark coloured car, said Dr Bourke, as he told defence barrister Eugene Manley BL that there was no violence or threat of violence used.
Det Garda Padraig Reddington said the matter was reported to gardai and he downloaded CCTV footage from Supervalu which captured the incident but it was not of sufficient quality to allow gardai identify the thief or the number plates on his car, but they were able to identify the car as a Volvo S 40.
He ran a check on black Volvo S40s on the Garda PULSE system and saw that a Volvo S40 Registration Number 03 D 23561 had been sold on January 10, 2017 to a John Breen of Barrett Street in Waterford so he asked a colleague to interview the seller.
The seller said he advertised the car in the Pink Pages of the Evening Echo and Done Deal on January 10th and got a call from a man whom he met and who said
he was a John Breen from Barrack Street in Waterford, and he filled in his details on the car logbook before selling it to him for €500.
Det Garda Reddington said that when he checked for a John Breen of Barrett Street in Waterford he found that there was no such address but he noticed there was a Barrack Street and that O’Brien lived there with his partner at a house number that was very similar to the address he gave for Barrett Street.
The car seller said he couldn’t remember the number the man had rung him on as he had since changed phones but a Garda Loughnane told the court she met him on January 24 and he showed her his phone and she took down the number of the mobile which the man had used to contact him,
Det Garda Reddington said that when he got the mobile phone number from Garda Loughnane, he gave it to Garda Mike Thompson of the Garda Electronic Crime Investigation Unit and he found that it was a pre-paid unregistered burner phone and that the owner could not be traced.
However, Garda Thompson told the court he checked with the service provider and found the last three places where it had been topped up - Egar’s Newsagents in Killarney on January 27, Kirwan’s Pharmacy in Kilmacthomas, Co Waterford on February 2 and Corrib Oil in Gort, Co Galway on February 8.
He was able to obtain CCTV footage of the phone owner buying credit in both Egar’s Newsagents on January 27 and Corrib Oil on February 8 and Det Garda Reddington said he recognized the man on the CCTV footage buying the phone credit as O’Brien, whom he had known for about ten years.
Det Garda Reddington said that he checked with Garda colleagues and also found CCTV footage of O’Brien at a garage in Leamybrien, Co Waterford on January 16, 2017, and in Ballincollig on January 23, 2017. In both the Ballincollig and Killarney footage, O’Brien was wearing a tweed jacket
and shirt while on the Leamybrien footage he was wearing a tweed jacket, shirt and tie, all of which were in keeping with the description given by Dr Bourke of the man who stole his money.
Garda Thompson said that when he checked the phone activity on January 19, the day of the incident, he found it was in Kilcummin, between Killarney and North Cork, at 11.31am and there was no activity on it then until 17.54 when it pinged at a mast in Roxboro in Limerick.
Det Garda Reddington said the S40 Volvo had been seized by Gardai in Cork city on March 18, 2017 and he asked forensic examiner Garda John Forde to take photos of the car and when he compared the photos with the CCTV footage he noticed striking resemblance between the two images of the car.
Cross-examined by Mr Manley, Det Garda Reddington agreed it was impossible to identify the driver of the Volvo from the CCTV footage from Supervalu in Newmarket, or to identify the car Reg No but the location of the insurance and tax discs, alloy wheels and trim matched the Volvo bought by O’Brien.
Mr Manley said that there had to be serious doubts about the identification of his client but Insp Tony O’Sullivan said that while he accepted Dr Bourke was confused about whether the man said he was a garda or a bank official, he believed there was enough evidence to convict O’Brien of the theft charge.
Judge Sheridan said he agreed with Mr Manley that the state did not prove its case on the impersonation charge but he believed the state had done enough to prove its case on the theft charge and he duly convicted O’Brien of stealing €700 from Dr Bourke.
Det Garda Reddington told the court that O’Brien had a total of 109 previous convictions, including five for theft, 23 for larceny as well as four for impersonating a garda, and Judge Sheridan sentenced him to nine months in jail and fixed recognisances in the event of an appeal.