Teenager jailed after €34,000 theft from shop

Barrister Garnet Orange said his client had a drug addiction at time of these offences

A TEENAGER who admitted having more than €34,000 worth of jewellery and antiques that had been stolen from a Drogheda store has also pleaded guilty to an aggravated burglary he had committed six months earlier.

Dylan Hafford (19), 48 Francis Street, Drogheda was before the circuit court in Dundalk recently and was given a total sentence of five years, with the last two years suspended.

Judge Michael O’Shea heard how there had been a burglary at the Times Past Antiques store at Dyer Street on January 20 2016 and a large amount of jewellery, including 23 diamond and gold rings, along with an ornamental sword and an antique Colt pistol had been taken, along with a small amount of money from the till.

The jewellery was taken from locked display cabinets and a short time later, all the items, except for two gents’ rings, were found by Gardai at Hafford’s address. The sword was found under a mattress in his bedroom, while the other items were found stuffed inside novelty cushions.

Hafford was arrested, but he made no admissions.

In addition, he pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary at a flat at Fair Street on July 5 2015. There was a party going on at the apartment and Hafford knocked at the window from the outside. He was with two other people and they asked for tobacco and cigarette papers but they were refused.

Hafford’s brother was at the party and he told the defendant to go away. But the accused kicked in the apartment door and had a knife, with a six inch blade, in his hand.

He hit a man who was in the flat and kicked him a number of times. An Acer laptop and the keys to the apartment were stolen. CCTV from the area showed Hafford going into the flat and he later told Gardai he didn’t know what happened.

Barrister Garnet Orange said his client had a drug addiction at the time of these offences. He has 44 previous convictions, including seven for criminal damage and one for arson.

Mr Orange said Hafford had started smoking cannabis when he was 13 and ‘ worked his way through everything, except heroin’, receiving his first criminal conviction when he was 14. Mr Orange said the defendant had spent ‘more time in custody than he has on release’.

Hafford was ‘ another example of a desperate situation where a young man who becomes very quickly addicted to the range of drugs out there’.

Judge O’Shea it was clear the offences were ‘fuelled by drugs’ and there was a high degree of violence used in the burglary in the flat.

He imposed a three year sentence for the handling stolen property, but suspended the final year. He imposed a concurrent five year sentence, with the final two years suspended, for the aggravated burglary with the sentences to run from November 6.