Court told jewellery worth €67,000 stolen from safe in room of hotel
A LONDON hotel owner told a Wexford court how she returned to her hotel bedroom following the cremation of her husband to find a safe containing more than €67,000 worth of jewellery had been stolen.
Vera O’Neill, of Sutherland Avenue, London, brought a civil action before Judge Alice Doyle at Wexford Circuit Civil Court relating to the theft of the jewellery at the Ferrycarrig Hotel in Wexford.
Judge Doyle was told during the action against the hotel that it’s not known how the safe was removed from the bedroom, with contradictory evidence as to how secure the safe was.
Mary O’Dwyer, B.L., for the plaintiff, told the court that on November 15, 2011, after arriving at the Ferrycarrig Hotel Vera O’Neill placed jewellery along with other items, including cash, in the safe in her room.
On arriving back up to her room from dinner in the hotel, Ms O’Neill saw that the safe was missing. She said it contained jewellery to the value of €67,692 and that only one of the pieces of jewellery – valued at €8,146 – was covered by insurance.
The remaining items, with a value of €59,546, were not covered, the court was told. None of the items were ever recovered.
Counsel for the Ferrycarrig Hotel, Andrew Walker, said that while the hotel accepted that the burglary took place, the burden of proof was to establish that negligence on the part of his clients contributed to the theft. However, Ms O’Dwyer said there is a breach of contract, as her client booked in for five nights and would have expected security.
In evidence, Vera O’Neill said that in her travels all over the world she brought a significant amount of jewellery with her because ‘my jewellery is 57 years of my life’.
‘I put the jewellery in the safe which is the course of action I always take as the hotel stated they would not accept responsibility for any loss or damage unless it’s in the safe in the room or the hotel,’ she said.
She said that she had attended her husband’s cremation on the day following her arrival at the Ferrycarrig. The jewellery had been in the safe that morning, along with her passport, documents and cash amounting to €500 and ST£500.
After the incident she stayed an extra night in the hotel to accommodate Garda forensics, her daughter staying with her.
She told the court that one of the documents from the safewas returned to her by Garda Aisling Ferriter.
Ms O’Neill said that after attending the cremation with members of her family she had returned to the hotel around 6 p.m. to relax and change before going down to dinner. She said she did not check the safe before dinner as she felt she had secured the jewellery earlier in the day.
She told that court that on returning to her room about 10 p.m. her key would not work. She went down to reception and a staff member accompanied her to help her access the room.
‘On entering the room I observed something was not right. I saw a black holdall bag on the ground which I found a bit strange. I rang down to reception and said someone had been in my room.
‘A staff member came to the room and at that stage I discovered the safe was gone. I informed the staff member that I had items in the safe.’
Ms O’Neill said that when the gardai arrived they were very helpful. ‘I had contact with the female garda whom I found so helpful. I would have had lots of experience in dealing with safes,’ Ms O’ Neill added.
She said that if the balcony door into the room was open it was only fractionally so. ‘I would always check windows and doors before leaving the room. It was the middle of November so I would have had no reason to go out on the balcony.’
‘Sometime later I was told by gardaí that a walker had found some documentation on the road but no jewellery or money was recovered,’ she said.
The Plaintiff said she had insurance on one item, a diamond pendant necklace, for which she was compensated.
Replying to Ms O’Dwyer, she said no one had been identified as being responsible for the robbery and no jewellery was recovered.
In reply to Defence Counsel, Mr. Walker, she said she she did not pay attention to the balcony door on arrival in the room. Following further cross-examination, she said that she had placed the jewellery in the safe and activated the keypad. She also said the safe had not been opened after that.
When questioned as to why the €500 was still in the safe even though she had gone out she replied: ‘I was not going to be spending money as I was taking my husband’s ashes. The money was in the safe as a precaution in case I needed it,’ she added.
Mr. Walker stated that Garda Tony Connolly would say in evidence that the balcony door was somewhat ajar.
He wondered why documentation showed four items were insured, but only one item was paid out on.
The plaintiff said she got valuations on her jewellery just to know the value. Mr. Walker said it was incumbent on her to have insurance.
‘I have travelled the world and nothing has ever been stolen. I had a 38-bedroom bed and breakfast hotel in the centre of London with my husband. We did not have safes in the rooms,’ she said.
Garda Aisling Ferriter who examined the bedroom on the night of the robbery, said that approximately two weeks later a walker located some documents on the road towards the Rugby Club and handed them in. She said no arrests had been made regarding the burglary.
The garda said she had no recollection of any major damage in the room. She said it was suggested the safe was held in place by a single screw. The balcony door was slightly ajar and the curtain was open.
Replying to Mr. Walker, Garda Ferriter said she did not look to see if any damage was done in extracting the safe.
Mr. Walker maintained the safe had been bolted to the wall and that removing it from the wall would have to leave some sign of damage.
Replying to Ms O’Dwyer, the plaintiff said that in 2011 she had stopped paying for insurance as she was trying to reduce her outlay. She also said that she travelled all the time with her jewellery and was devastated when it was taken.
Stephen Heffernan, a security expert, gave evidence of having conducted an inspection of the property on February 14, 2017. When he arrived at the room no replacement safe had been put in place.
He interviewed both Mrs. O’Neill and her daughter.
He said this particular safe had been fixed to the back of the wardrobe, but the recommended method was to fix safes to the fabric of the building.
He said he could not see two holes in the timber frame, and there were no holes in the base of the wardrobe shelf.
In his opinion there were two ways the safe could have been taken. Someone with the code could have opened the safe and unbolted it – with the fixing so lightly fixed to the timber and not into the fabric of the building, it would have been easy to pull the safe forward and pop it out.
However, the most likely scenario was that someone took the safe out as it was not very well fixed. If it had been bolted to the shelf and at the back it would have been difficult to take out and time consuming.
Replying to Mr. Walker, the witness said he saw CCTV cameras in the foyer and at the front gate, but did not see any other CCTV cameras. Mr. Walker said it would not have been feasible to have CCTV in the hall to the bedrooms owing to privacy issues with children and families returning to rooms from leisure areas.
At that point in the proceedings, with the Defence still to give evidence, Judge Doyle noted that it was 5 p.m. on a Friday evening, and adjourned the case until the February sitting of Wexford Circuit Civil Court.