Galway Bay fm newsroom – A judge has described a charity scam by three city residents as ‘particularly mean’.
30 year old Shane Sweeney and 40 year old Ann Marie Barrett from Castlepark, Ballybane and 32 year old Roseanna Cleary from Castlelawn Heights, Headford Road all pleaded guilty to carrying out collections without permits in Cork last year.
Garda Shane Coakley arrested the three Galway residents carrying out the scam collections in Cork city last November.
The trio had buckets and posters in the name of Suicide Aware.
According to today’s Irish Examiner, the collections were not authorised by the charity Suicide Aware and gardaí had not granted a permit.
Some people had been duped into contributing to the bogus scam and gardaí confiscated about 50 euro between the three of them.
That money will now be donated to the actual charity to which the duped contributors intended it to go.
Judge Leo Malone said that ‘we all know the problem with suicide in this country’ and said the scam by the three city residents is ‘a particularly mean thing to do’.
The judge said that a jail sentence was merited in the case of Shane Sweeney as he had previous similar convictions.
However, following submissions from solicitor Donal Daly, Judge Malone said Sweeney could do 160 hours of community service.
He said Roseanna Cleary could do a similar period of community service, while Ann Marie Barrett was fined 500 euro.
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