Man entered StateSolicitor and Coroner offices claim

ACCUSED TRALEE MAN WITH 119 CONVICTIONS IS REFUSED COURT BAIL

A 38-YEAR-OLD man has been charged with removing a handbag valued at over €1,000 from the South Kerry coroner’s private office in Tralee, and attempting to steal from the separate offices of the State solicitor.

Trevor O’Callaghan, Basin Court, Tralee, is charged with two counts of burglary on March 7 during office hours. He entered the private office of the South Kerry coroner at Denny Street and took a handbag valued at over €1,000 and contents including cash to the value of €160, it is alleged.

A week later, also during office hours, he entered as a trespasser a private office at the State Solicitor’s in Ashe Street intending to steal but was disturbed by a member of staff, it is alleged.

He had been before a special sitting of the court in Killarney last weekend and was before Tralee in custody on Wednesday where a bail application was made.

Objecting to an application for bail, Sgt Ernie Henderson said Mr O’Callaghan had 119 previous convictions, 67 of which had been while he was on bail. There was strong evidence for these alleged offences. He had been jailed for 10 months in November in Tralee Circuit Court for burglary and was released at the end of January – the sentence was backdated to September 2017.

Some 53 of the previous convictions were for burglary, the sergeant said.

Defence solicitor Padraig O’Connell questioned the value placed on the handbag taken from the south Kerry coroner’s office.

“Surely you are not saying the handbag was valued at over €1,000?” the solicitor asked Sgt Henderson.

The sergeant replied yes, stating that this was the value placed “by the injured party”.

“I don’t think my wife has a handbag valued at over €1,000 – or if she has it is unknown to me,” the solicitor said. However, Judge Waters intervened to say that even he knew handbags could be worth more than €1,000.

Mr O’Connell said his client would abide by any conditions and he would undertake to hand over his passport.

Judge Waters refused bail stating that this was because of the number of offences committed while on bail previously. He added that 10 weeks after serving a relatively short proportion of a 10 month burglary sentence, there was now another allegation of burglary.