DRUMM STUCK IN THE ’JOY TOGETHER IN MARCH...
Disgraced banker will have to join long waiting list for ‘softer’ jail and has listed his mother – not his wife – as next of kin
DISGRACED banker David Drumm is expected to serve most of his six-year sentence in Dublin’s Mountjoy jail as Prisoner Number 102640.
And if the 51-year-old former boss of Anglo Irish Bank wants to move from the country’s toughest prison to a jail with a less strict regime, he will first have to apply and then wait for a space to become available.
There is already a lengthy list of prisoners waiting to be transferred to the more sought-after open-style prisons and Drumm will not be able to jump the queue ahead of these other offenders.
Meanwhile, it has emerged the father of two has listed his retired hairdresser mother Mary, and not his 49-year-old wife Lorraine, as his next of kin.
These revelations come as Drumm spends his first weekend behind bars since he was given a six-year sentence at Dublin’s Circuit Criminal Court last week for conspiracy to commit fraud and with false accounting to make the bank’s financial state look healthier than it was in 2008.
A source revealed: ‘All this talk about David Drumm being moved from Mountjoy to a less strict prison or an open prison is nonsense. He spent his first few nights in the basement section of Mountjoy which is known as “The Base”.
‘He is in a single cell like everyone else and he is going to be in Mountjoy for the foreseeable future because there’s a waiting list for places like Wheatfield.
‘If he does want to move he will have to apply and then he’ll have to wait his turn.
‘So he’s not going to be moving any time soon. He’s settling down and getting on with serving his time. He is not going to get an easy time and he will not be getting out early. He will serve all of his sentence and will get the same amount of remission as every other prisoner.’
The source added: ‘He will probably be given some kind of a job fairly soon. There are different levels in prison life. When you come in you are just a regular prisoner, but then as time goes by you can become what is called an “enhanced prisoner” which means that you can get more privileges and you can earn as much as €2.50 a day for work. That means you have more money to spend in the tuck shop.
‘He doesn’t smoke so I suppose he’ll be able to buy a newspaper with his €2.50 a day wages.’
In the lead-up to being sentenced last Wednesday, Drumm spent his last hours as a free man over a few pints at a local pub in his hometown of Skerries in north Dublin.
He went to the pub on Monday night and it is believed the excursion was one of the few times he ventured out of the mortgage-free luxury seafront home he shares with his wife Lorraine.
According to the Property Price Register, the house at Barnageeragh Cove, in the seaside town of Skerries, was bought in August 2016 for €418,502 and the disgraced banker’s wife was registered as the full owner of the property in May of last year.
It would appear that it was a cash deal as no mortgage is attached to the three-storey townhouse which has stunning views of the Mourne Mountains.
Although Lorraine has previously claimed her husband – who revelled in been known as ‘The Drummer’ during his high flying banking days – was her ‘best friend’ and ‘the love of my life’, she was noticeably absent throughout the course of his lengthy trial.
And neither she nor any other family members were in court last Wednesday as Drumm faced the ultimate ignominy of been led away by prison officers to start life as a jailbird. A family friend revealed: ‘Lorraine never went to the court with David, but they were out and about together during the course of the trial.
‘The trial didn’t stop them going out for meals together with friends and family and just a week before he was convicted, they were out walking together along one of the beaches in Skerries.
‘She goes back and forth between here and America because their two daughters are living over there.
‘One of the girls graduated recently and Lorraine went over there for that.
‘After he was convicted a fortnight ago, her family dropped in to visit David at the house. But as far as I know she decided not to come back to Ireland for the sentencing hearing… she wasn’t going to be seen as “standing by her man”.
‘Since he was convicted he hasn’t been out and about as much as he was. I think the only time he ventured out was to sign on at Balbriggan Garda station and then last Monday night he went out and had a few quiet pints in his local.’
‘Lorraine never went to the court with David’