Southside gold and cash thief appears in court

A MAN previously convicted of manslaughter and serious drug offences has had been given a three year suspended sentence for stealing cash and gold.

Abraham Turner (47), formerly of Cherry Grove, Walkinstown, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to burglary of cash and gold at Hatton Goldsmiths, Citywest Shopping Centre, Dublin 24, on January 16, 2014.

Detective Garda Kevin Ryan told James Dwyer BL, prosecuting, that Hatton Goldsmiths operated a ‘cash for gold’ stall in the shopping centre, which was closed at the time of the burglary.

CCTV footage showed a man jumping over the stall counter, prying a locked press open with a screwdriver and removing €1,050 in cash, gold worth €2,156 and two cheques totalling €750.

After initially denying involvement, Turner later admitted the burglary and said that he used the proceeds to pay off a €1,500 drug debt that had arisen from his three bags a day heroin addiction.

Turner, who has 106 previous convictions, was released from prison in 1991 after serving five years for manslaughter. He was again imprisoned in 2004 for supply of drugs and was released in 2010.

Det Gda Ryan agreed with Marc Thompson BL, defending, that Turner had not been in trouble with the law from his release in 2010 until this incident, and that the majority of his previous convictions were District Court matters.

Judge Melanie Greally acknowledged that he had a substantial criminal record but said he was “the quintessential example of someone who had reached a point in his life where he wanted to put his criminal life behind him and address his heroin addiction in a real way”.

She suspended the three-year sentence in full on condition that Turner undertakes to complete a residential drugs programme.

Sonya McLean