A married father of three was this week sentenced to three months in prison for trespassing in a rented Castlebar home.
Castlebar District Court heard that on August 2 2011 at 1.50am, a witness called gardaí to say that a person had been observed breaking the window of 22 The Grove, Castlebar. Gardaí arrived on the scene and entered through the broken window. Detective Sgt Gary Walsh said that the light was on in the upstairs bedroom when gardaí entered, however when they got upstairs the light was off and there was no one in the main bedroom. Gardaí entered a box room, and observed Mark Maughan, 14 Northbrook, Castlebar, exiting a wardrobe.
The defendant had socks on his hands and he was wearing two jackets, which belonged to the occupants of the house. Inside the jacket were 40 cigarettes, again the property of the tenants, and inside Maughan’s trousers was €52 worth of cannabis.
Maughan said that he was in the house as he had been given permission to be there from the occupants, with whom he had been socialising earlier in a pub in Balla.
Initially the person who lived in the house — a Czech national — said that no permission had been given, however the day after the incident he made another statement where he claimed that in fact his girlfriend had given Maughan permission to stay in the house that night. This witness told the court that the window was already broken that night as he had broken it earlier that day.
Inspector Fran Nicholson put it to the witness that he had come into court and told a “tissue of lies to suit a certain story”.
The defendant told the court that after attending a poker game in Balla he went to a friend’s house in The Grove and observed someone run away from 22 The Grove. Maughan said he went to the house, knocked on the door and then saw broken glass from a window. The defendant said that two jackets were outside the window and so he put them on, in order to take them inside, and then climbed through the broken window in order to make sure that everything was OK.
Maughan denied that he had his socks on his hands, but he said that they were in his hands as the glass irritated his ankles as he entered the house and so he took them off. Maughan also said that he found the cigarettes and the cannabis in the jacket, however he placed the cannabis in his trouser pocket after it fell out from the jacket while being transported to the Garda station
The inspector said that the defendant seemed to have a logical explanation for everything “which I don’t accept”.
Judge Mary Devins said there was no evidence that the defendant broke the window and so dismissed the section two criminal damage charge. The judge said the witness “lied in the witness box” and said that the lies the court heard were “at the least unedifying and at worst sinister”.
The judge found that the prosecution proved the trespassing charge and said that Mr Maughan’s evidence, in her belief was, “completely untruthful”.
Maughan, who has two previous convictions, was convicted and fined €500 for trespassing and sentenced to three months in prison. For the possession charge he was convicted and fined €100.
