A man has been sentenced to two-and-a half years in prison for stealing almost €50,000 in a cash box from a security worker outside a bank in Co Westmeath two years ago.
Scott Capper, 27, from Cappagh Green, Finglas in Dublin, pleaded guilty to a charge of the theft of €49,775 from a GSLS security guard outside the Bank of Ireland on Blackhall Street, Mullingar on 3 May 2019.
He was identified after his DNA was linked to a tracksuit bottoms that he was seen throwing away under a bridge on the Royal Canal after abandoning the getaway vehicle used in the incident.
Mobile phone data from a handset seized from Capper after he was arrested in a hotel in Athlone three days after the theft also placed him at the scene.
Detective Garda Aidan O'Reilly told Mullingar Circuit Criminal Court that an individual wearing a high-viz jacket had jumped out of a black BMW and threatened the security official to drop the cash box.
He told counsel for the DPP, John Hayden, SC that no weapons or violence were used during the incident.
Det Garda O'Reilly said the BMW was discovered burnt out near the Royal Canal at Sonna, Co Westmeath.
The court heard the cash-box was subsequently found on farmland near Sonna but the money was never recovered.
Det Garda O'Reilly said it appeared that two security fobs needed to open the cash-box had been used to take out the money within six minutes of it being stolen.
Capper has 51 previous convictions and is currently serving a three-and-a-half year jail sentence after being convicted on two counts of assaults in relation to incidents in Temple Bar in Dublin in 2016.
Counsel for Capper, John Fitzgerald SC, said his client was a talented footballer who had gone on trial with a number of leading English soccer clubs before his sporting career was curtailed by a knee injury and his life "spun out of control."
The court heard he developed a cocaine addiction where he was spending up to €500 a day on drugs.
Mr Fitzgerald said the theft in Mullingar was the result of his client's desperate need for money to feed his drug habit.
Sentencing Capper to four years in prison, Judge Keenan Johnson suspended the final 18 months on condition he submit himself to the supervision of the Probation Service on release and engage with drug counselling while remaining drug free.
The judge said aggravating factors were the element of planning to the offence and the fact that the cash was never recovered.
He observed Capper was another of many young lives which were destroyed by drugs, which he described as "the greatest scourge on society."
