Man who arranged bogus loans made no gain from his crime

A LOAN firm representative who fraudulently arranged to draw down thousands of euro from his employers made no gain from his crimes.

The District Court sitting in Wexford handed a suspended jail term to since retired old age pensioner Joe Day (68) of Tenacre, Ballycogley.

Prosecutors accepted that there was an element of ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’ in the offences which dated back seven and eight years.

The court was told how 11 Provident loans arranged by Day were paid out in five different names but that all of the €16,000-plus was in fact received by the defendant.

Solicitor Ed King reminded Judge John Cheatle that his client was first arrested as long ago as August 2012.

The loans dated back to 2008 and 2009.

At one stage, the DPP recommended that no prosecution should be taken but this view was reversed after Provident called for a review of the decision. As soon as he was questioned, Day made admissions of guilt, stressed Mr King.

The court heard that the accused, who worked previously as an odd job man, was on the Provident payroll for eight years going door to door offering loans.

He was also expected to collect repayments but he ran into difficulties with defaulters.

He was getting his ear chewed off by his bosses, as he put it later when interviewed by Gardaí, because of the arrears.

He told how he first started by putting in money from his own pocket to balance the books. Then he arranged the bogus loans so that he had funds to cover for the non-payments.

‘I was tormented by the whole thing,’ he said in his statement. ‘I wasn’t the best man for the job.’

The court learned that Joe Day, who attended court on crutches, was insulin dependent and on 25 tablets a day.

Garda Donal Doyle said that the suspect he met in the course of his investigations showed none of the trappings of wealth.

Provident’s area security manager, New Ross man Sean O’Brien, was called to the witness box to confirm that 11 fictitious loans were issued.

He also confirmed that the company remained at a loss as a result of what occurred.

A six month prison term was recorded but Judge Cheatle agreed with Mr King that no purpose would be served by putting Day behind bars, so the sentence was suspended for 18 months. In view of the defendant’s state of health, community service was not considered an option.