By Sonya McLean
A serial burglar who gardaí found sleeping in a shop he had just broken into has been jailed for six and half years for three separate burglaries.
Vincent Widdess (50) was discovered by gardaí following the final burglary after officers tracked his location using one of the phones he had stolen from the house.
Widdess, of St Ronan’s Park, Clondalkin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to burglary of a national school in Dublin City Centre, a shop on Pearse Street and a residential property on Infirmary Road, Dublin on dates between July 2024 and February 10, 2025.
Widdess was on a suspended sentence at the time and also on station bail. He has multiple previous convictions including several for burglary.
Judge Elma Sheahan imposed consecutive sentences totalling seven and half years in prison after she noted “the serious nature of the offending”, the fact that he was on bail and his “significant number of previous offending” for similar offences.
The judge acknowledged that Widdess pleaded guilty, fully co-operated with the gardaí and made admissions on his arrest.
Judge Sheahan further accepted that Widdess had significant health issues due to a long-standing heroin and alcohol addiction. She accepted that he has since made efforts to rehabilitate.
She said “it would be of societal interest” for the accused to receive help on his release from prison and to manage his return into society before she suspended the final 12 months of the term on condition that he engage with The Probation Service for 12 months.
The sentence was backdated to when Widdess first went into custody last February.
Detective Garda Thomas Byrne told Simon Donagh BL, prosecuting, that gardaí arrived at the shop on Pearse Street, Dublin just after 9am on August 3, 2024 after a burglar alarm was activated.
A bottom panel of glass in the door had been smashed and officers climbed through it to gain access. Widdess was found sleeping in a chair in an upstairs office.
Gardaí woke him and he told them he had been looking for somewhere to sleep. He admitted he had looked through the till but said there was no money in it.
Widdess was later found to have a staff ID, a hammer, three AIB cheque books and lodgement book belonging to the shop, a bottle of perfume and a bracelet that he had taken from staff.
He later made full admissions during a garda interview and identified himself on CCTV footage.
The following February, a passerby noticed the front door of a house on Infirmary Road was open and knocked on the door with the intention of telling the homeowner. It was just after midnight.
Widdess then came around the side of the house and the passerby called the gardaí.
The home-owner and his family were asleep upstairs at that time. They later found that six mobile phones and a backpack had been stolen.
Gardaí then used a tracking device on one of the mobile phones to locate Widdess in Castleknock. He still had the property stolen during the burglary with him. It was later returned to the victim.
Gardaí accepted in cross-examination from Gerard Charlton BL, defending, that it was not in Widdess’s nature to be confrontational.
Mr Chalton said his client had a long history of heroin abuse and alcoholism.
“That has taken its toll,” counsel said, before referring Judge Sheahan to medical reports which outlined many of Widdess’s medical conditions.
He said his client has “been in and out of prison all of his life”.