Man who stole delivery van full of parcels given suspended sentence

By Niamh O’Donoghue

A man with a “shocking record” who stole a delivery van full of parcels before Christmas and told the driver where he would leave it has been given a suspended sentence and disqualified from driving for five years.

Mark Davis (35) of Kilmartin Drive, Tallaght pleaded guilty to stealing the DPD van containing 66 packages in Jobstown on December 4, 2023.

The packages had a combined value of €901.

The father-of-one also pleaded guilty to driving without a licence and insurance on the same date.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard Davis has 207 previous convictions for offences including burglary, handling stolen property, theft, endangerment charges and damaging the property of another person.

There was also a driving disqualification for 20 years.

He also had convictions for driving without a licence, hit-and runs, dangerous driving, failing to produce a driving licence, driving with no insurance, breach of the peace, obstruction of the peace, failing to appear and using a phone in prison.

The court heard Davis was a victim of a hit-and-run shortly before his sentence hearing last November, which gardaí are investigating.

Garda Jessica Kidd previously told the court that the driver was delivering packages in the Sundale Park area of Tallaght and got out of the van, before he noticed a man in a blue jacket driving away in it.

Davis turned the van around in a cul-de-sac and as he was passing by, he said “I’ll leave the van round (sic) in that estate.”

The driver went looking for the van and found it parked on the road with the engine running and the doors open, with all but one of 67 packages missing from it.

Sarah-Jane O’Callaghan BL, defending, said her client came from a very supportive pro-social family but had struggled with drug addiction and had previously been in residential treatment.

She said he was now taking a heroin substitute prescribed by his doctor but had no proof of this, as the letter he had was on his phone which was damaged in the hit-and-run incident.

She asked the judge to not send him to prison again as he would be exposed to drugs.

Sentencing him yesterday, Judge Sinéad Ní Chúlacháin said Davis had a “shocking record,” though this was his first conviction in the Circuit Court.

She said there was a lack of insight into the seriousness of his offending, but she noted he has pro-social support from his father and his family and is trying to stay away from negative peers.

She set a headline sentence of three years, which she reduced to two years.

She suspended the sentence in its entirety on a number of conditions, including that he engage with the Probation Service and drug treatment service.

She said he must make efforts to get employment or a place on an educational programme and to engage in victim-focused work.

She disqualified him from driving for a period of five years.