THEFT FROM ENNISCRONE SOCCER CLUB
SEE REPORT INSIDE
A 51 year old woman has been ordered to pay back a soccer club € 27,000 after stealing thousands of euro from the club while she was treasurer.
Regina McKenna of Lacken, Enniscrone was also given a four year jail term, suspended for five years by Judge Keenan Johnson at Sligo Circuit Court.
The court was told McKenna stole almost € 23,000 from December 2008 to September 2011 when she was treasurer of Kilglass/ Enniscrone United FC by lodging cheques to her own account or by cashing them. Mother of two, McKenna faced 21 counts of theft in all.
She didn’t give evidence at her sentencing hearing but the court was told she had lodged € 5,000 in a cheque with her solicitor for the club and this was awaiting clearance.
The money came from a loan from her mother, said Mr Keith O’Grady BL ( defending) with Mr Mark Mullaney, solicitor.
The matters came to light when a new chairman took over the club following its AGM in July 2011.
Ms Dara Foynes BL with State Solicitor Mr Hugh Sheridan ( prosecuting) told the court the club had raised € 4,000 through a Race Night in September 2011 and when he asked the AIB bank for a printout of transactions he saw that € 2,000 had been transferred to another old account used by the club in the past as a building fund.
The chairman began to email the treasuer asking for explantions to a number of queries but she never replied.
In November 2011 he met with her but it was ‘ short and sweet’ said Ms Foynes and McKenna had never attended another club meeting following the race night.
Further emails were sent to her and she relied to some. Funds were not there and cheques were not met. She was contacted and asked to hand over everything.
An AIB statement didn’t show too many lodgements. It was revealed that 21 cheques totalling € 23,500 approximately had been made out to her and she was a signatory on all of them. Other parties were mandated to sign them. Two out of three people could sign cheques for the club
Eventually, the matter was reported to the Gardaí in Enniscrone and Garda P J Loftus was appointed to investigate.
On July 30th 2015 the defendant was arrested and brought to Ballymote Garda Station Pic: McKenna told Gardaí the money was used for the football club but couldn’t recall what each cheque was for. She had lodged a cheque for the club’s insurance to her own account but said she had paid for it out of her own account but hadn’t. This was subsequently repaid.
Garda Loftus asked the defendant was she struggling financially and she replied: “No more than anybody, up and down.”
Garda Loftus said the defendant lived with her son and daughter at Lacken and her partner worked in the UK. She was employed in a veterinary clinic in Ballina, from whom a reference was handed in to court.
After the club’s chairman, Peter Regan addressed the court in relation to the impact the theft had on the club and its members, Judge Keenan Johnson said there was a longstanding tradition by Irish people of volunteerism in their local clubs and he appreciated this and complimented those involved in Kilglass/ Enniscrone.
“Obviously this has had a devastating impact on the club members,” he said, adding that the defendant’s guilty plea had lifted the finger of suspicion on other club members and the committee was to be complimented for the taking the proper course of action in reporting the matter to the Gardaí when they did.
Mr O’Grady said it was the defendant’s intention to repay “every penny” to the club. She had lodged € 5,000 with her solicitor which was awaiting clearance. McKenna was earning € 450 a week and was a homeowner and has put forward the possibility of selling it if needs be.
Mr O’Grady said there was a plea to the 21 counts and while there must have been more than one signature on the cheques there was absolutely no allegation of wrongdoing by others.
“She doesn’t blame anyone else in this regard,” he said.
He added that the cheques were made payable to herself and she got the benefit of them.
He pleaded that it would have been a very complicated case to prosecute had it gone to trial.
She had also been certainly named and shamed in the local media and rightly so, added Mr O’Grady.
“This will have a huge affect on her in the community and on her family. It was an opportunistic crime that went on for almost three years,” he said, adding that the defendant was not an habitual criminal.
A probation report outlined how she had expressed remorse and it also noted she was at a low risk of re- offending.
Mr O’Grady pleaded that a custodial sentence not be imposed and noted the club’s “kind and benign view of what might happen this person if she pays back the money.”
Judge Johnson said the emotional impact had a far greater corrosive effect on the club and the community than the money going missing with a number of members feeling compelled to resign as they couldn’t cope with the pressure.
The defendant probably didn’t take that into account in her offending. It was a fundamental breach of trust and it was quite clear she benefitted financially with a large element of premeditation involved over three years of diverting money from the club.
She wasn’t fulsome in co- operation with Gardaí insisting that the money had been put to use for the club.
The mitigating factors included the guilty plea. A trial would have taken tow to three weeks with enormous resources being used up and this has to be seen as a significant mitgating factor, said Judge Johnson.
It also saved the club members having to give evidence and being open to cross examination. The defendant’s plea of guilty was a vindication of the other members over whom there would have been a cloud until this plea.
There was also the defendant’s unblemished record up to now and the fact she was working all her life. The Judge noted from the probation report that the defendant had issues whilst growing up and had suffered from depression for which she was receiving medication.
Judge Johnson said an immediate custodial sentence would serve no useful purpose. He imposed a jail term of four years, suspended for five years on condition that € 27,000 be paid to the club, taking into account interest, over that period.
The € 5,000 with her solicitor was to be the first payment and thereafter € 5,500 was to be paid each year beginning on May 1st 2018. McKenna also entered a bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for five years.