Togher mum is jailed for two years after Clogher robbery

A 24-year-old mum who helped three men in the armed robbery of Clogherhead Post Office last year has been jailed for two years at Dundalk Circuit Court.

Sarah Doyle from Kilally, Togher admitted a charge of robbery at the Village Stores on the afternoon of May 3 2016 when three men, armed with a gun, a sledgehammer and a Taser disguised as a mobile phone stole just over €7,000 on Children’s Allowance day.

The court heard how Doyle had been a regular customer at the post office, collecting her social welfare there before the incident, and she continued to collect it in the weeks after the robbery.

Three masked men drove to the store and went to the post office. One of them smashed the inside door of the post office, while the other two, one of whom pointed a gun at the female owner and her two female colleagues, went to the front counter.

They demanded money and the women gave them what was in the till, and later, the safe was opened and the contents were also handed over. The women said, in victim impact statements read to the court, they had never been so scared in all their lives.

The men drove away from the scene in the car they came in, but met Doyle who had parked her own vehicle in a field the Coast Road and she drove them away. The men’s car was later found burnt out and it was revealed that Doyle had received €1,000 for her part in the robbery. The money has never been recovered, the court heard.

Garda investigations revealed mobile phone contact between Doyle and the three men in the days running up to the robbery. She had ‘ local knowledge’ of the post office and she knew the roads in and out of Clogherhead.

When she was arrested on August 1 and interviewed by Gardai, she denied in five out of six interviews having prior knowledge of the robbery. In her last interview, she claimed she only knew about it that morning, she didn’t know there were armed and helped with the identification of the robbers.

Judge Michael O’Shea heard about the devastating effect the robbery had on the three women, two of whom are sisters.

Doyle was associating with drug users at the time of the offence and was using cannabis heavily. Doyle lives at home with her mother and small child and is the carer for her mum, whom the court heard has ‘chronic medical problems’.

Doyle is now drug-free and barrister Roisin Lacey said Doyle had ‘shown complete remorse’ for getting involved in the robbery in an ‘abjectly stupid’ way. She has learned a very salutary lesson and is in ‘absolute terror’ for what the court can do.

Doyle is ‘mortified and shameful’ about what she has done and the impact the robbery has had on the victims. A sum of €1,000 was in court from the defendant.

Judge O’Shea said the robbery was ‘shocking and terrifying’ for the women and Doyle, by driving the men away after the crime, had been ‘an important link’ in the incident, even though she was not armed and didn’t go into the post office.

Judge O’Shea imposed a four year sentence, with the last two years suspended, for a period of two years following her release.