Gardaí hunt for serial offender over burglary

A MAN who bragged about being awarded €100,000 after losing the top half of three of his fingers with a guillotine steel cutter while jailed is suspected of the burglary of an elderly couple two days after leaving prison, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Felix ‘Goose’ Moorehouse, with an address at 1 West Pier Halting Site, Dún Laoghaire, left prison on May 5 and is suspected of the burglary in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, on May 7.

Two Dublin men have since been arrested but gardaí are also looking to question Moorehouse. An alert has been circulated to gardaí around the country.

A source told the MoS: ‘The elderly couple were left terrified. The man was hospitalised.’

Moorehouse was involved in a serious accident while serving a sentence in Wheatfield Prison in 2008, during which he cut off the top half of three fingers on his left hand. He was using a guillotine steel cutter to cut metal as part of a training programme.

Court documents claim Moorehouse was under the influence of methadone when his hand got caught.

Moorehouse, who is banned from driving for 25 years, was stopped at a checkpoint recently and bragged to gardaí about being awarded €100,000 following the accident.

But this week his family suggested that he hadn’t received any of the money.

The prolific offender has around 60 previous convictions, which including theft, burglary and car theft.