Church Crypt arsonist stole suitcase and mobile phone in ‘bizarre” theft

By Natasha Reid

A man serving a six-year jail term for setting a fire in a church crypt, damaging 800-year-old mummified remains, has appeared in court for the ‘bizarre’ theft of a suitcase and mobile phone from a woman a couple of hours later.

He will not have to serve any more time for the theft.

Cristian Topiter (39) was sentenced in February for the arson at St Michan’s Church in Dublin, which Archdeacon David Pierpoint described as “an act of desecration and sacrilege” at the time. Topiter had pleaded guilty to committing the offence on June 11 last year.

The court heard that the mummified remains, described as irreplaceable and priceless, had included ‘the Crusader’, which dates back 800 years.

They had been preserved by natural means, providing annual tourist revenues of up to €100,000.

There have been no tours since the fire, which resulted in a “financial crisis” for the parish and the church, which was built in 1192.

Topiter, of Grand Canal House, Lower Rathmines Road in Dublin, also had a previous conviction for arson from Northern Ireland in which €300,000 worth of damage was caused to a building.

Yesterday he was before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court having pleaded guilty to the theft of a mobile phone and suitcase from a Ukranian woman, as she sat talking on her phone in nearby Smithfield Square two hours after the St Michan’s arson.

Garda Jane Mitchell testified that Topiter had approached the woman as she sat on a bench and said something in a language that she didn’t understand.

He then took the phone out of her hand and took her suitcase and ran off toward the Luas stop.

Her case contained her clothes, her Ukrainian passport, some cash and a voucher.

It happened extremely quickly and the woman was shocked, she said.

The suitcase was recovered from Topiter’s address later that day, and appeared to have not been opened.

The phone was never found.

Topiter told gardai that he didn’t have any memory of the incident, but asked them to pass on his apologies to the injured party, who has since returned to Ukraine.

Gda Mitchell agreed with Oisín Clarke BL, defending, that the situation and the entire day had been ‘quite bizarre’ from start to finish.

Topiter had been heard indicating something to do with God and Jesus and that he’d wanted to die while in the church, and was rambling in relation to religious matters.

As for the theft, CCTV had captured him wandering aimlessly up the Luas track with a suitcase.

Gda Mitchell accepted that he was genuinely confused when she approached him that evening and appeared to have absolutely no recollection of the incident.

Mr Clarke handed the court three certificates his client had attained in prison since being sentenced for the church arson.

They included a certificate in psychology and one from the Red Cross.

“He remains sober for the past 13 months, his longest since the age of 12 or 13,” he said.

The court heard that Topiter works in the prison seven days a week and has an interest in helping people with similar problems to his.

He had previously set up his own soup run with his partner.

“He has concentrated on courses where he will be able to assist others,” he said, asking the judge to consider this the true nature of his client.

“The court can see the trauma inflicted on him by his own parents and state bodies while he was in their care in Romania,” he said, referring to reports before the court.

He said that on the day in question, Topiter had been drinking and taking tablets.

“He was wandering around the city with a suitcase, which he never opened,” he said. “It makes no sense and it was a bizarre offence as was the one prior to this.”

Judge Pauline Codd said that it was clear that Topiter had suffered very significant trauma and was exposed to very significant violence as a child.

He had begun drinking alcohol early and had lived a very unstable life.

In circumstances where the two matters could have been heard together and in view of the progress he’s making…I’m not going to add to the current sentence,” she said.

She imposed a one-year term on him to run concurrently with the sentence for the arson.