Travel agent stole €18k from Santa charity

A TRAVEL agent has been convicted of stealing more than €18,000 from a charity he founded for terminally ill children.

It took the jury just 42 minutes of deliberating to find John Murphy, 66, aka Con, guilty.

The thief, from the upmarket south Dublin suburb of Killiney, was found guilty of writing cheques from the account of the Children To Lapland Appeal and lodging them in his own personal account.

Murphy’s defence barrister told Dublin Circuit Criminal Court he used his personal account for many business transactions related to the charity and his now- defunct travel agency United Travel. He said there was no intention to keep the money for his personal gain.

Prosecutor Garrett McCormack described this position as ‘The Father Ted’ defence. ‘To quote Dermot Morgan, they’re trying to say “the money was simply resting in my account”,’ he said.

Murphy had pleaded not guilty to four counts of theft between June and July 2010 in the Dublin area totalling €18,643. Following conviction, Judge Patrick McCartan remanded Murphy in custody until his sentencing on Monday.

Defence counsel Patrick Reynolds asked that Murphy be allowed remain on bail. He submitted that he was in remission from cancer and his sister was very sick. The judge refused, saying: ‘It is the practice of this court to remand the accused in custody following conviction at trial.’

The trial heard Murphy’s full-time job was operating United Travel, the travel agent based in Stillorgan, which flew a route to Lapland. In 1987 Murphy, of Church Road, Killiney, devoted one of these flights to sending terminally ill children from around the country to Lapland to see Santa. This became the Children To Lapland Appeal, of which he became a director.