Two Ballyhaunis men pleaded guilty to theft by deception arising out of three fraudulent social welfare claims last year. Barry McCrudden of 29 Esker Pines, Ballyhaunis, and Patrick Waldron of Cave, Ballyhaunis, pleaded guilty to three offences each in court.
Garda Alan Ryan told the court that he got a call from social welfare inspector Anthony Gavin on June 22 2001 claiming that Patrick Waldron had collected social welfare payments belonging to Barry McCrudden for the past three weeks. Garda Ryan told the court he reviewed the CCTV footage and saw Waldron at 10.20am on May 13, at 3.21pm on May 23 and at 3.52pm on May 31. He also was given the original signed receipts for 54 weeks for McCrudden’s payment and from examining the receipts the signature was the same for the all but the three dates in question. The amount claimed for each week by Waldron was €242.30.
Garda Ryan went on to say that he interviewed both men as part of his investigation and McCrudden said that he had gone to England to visit his son and had got delayed over there and had asked his friend (Waldron ) to collect his payments on his behalf. Garda Ryan told the court that Waldron admitted collecting the payments for his friend but he didn’t benefit in any way from the arrangement and handed all the money over to McCrudden when he came home.
Judge Mary Devins told the court that she hoped that both men would have learned from this incident and ordered them both to pay €200 to Western Care by June 5 and she would deal with them under the Probation Act.
