A Castlebar woman was given a three-months suspended sentence and fined €250 for breaking into a house she used to rent at Claremorris District Court (sitting in Kiltimagh ) this week.
Antoinette Jordan, Kilkenny Cross, Castlebar, Co Mayo pleaded guilty to the charge in court. Garda Peter Sarsfield in his evidence to the court said that on February 2 2008 at 6.45am he got a call to say there were intruders in a house in the town. He arrived at the house with the owner shortly after, where he found a window which had been damaged at the back. Upon searching the house he found Jordan and two others in the house. Garda Sarsfield said that the owner of the property told him that Jordan had previously been a tenant of his in that property. Garda Sarsfield told the court that the defendant told him it was a very bad night and she couldn’t get a taxi back to Castlebar because nobody would go out in that weather, so she decided to stay there.
Solicitor for Jordan, Aidan Crowley, told the court that his client was a 24-year-old mother of two with another child on the way. She had been out that night and had a lot to drink, in the region of 12 Bacardi Breezers, and she was unable to get a lift back to Castlebar due to the bad weather conditions so she decided to stay in this house which she had previously rented. He continued by saying that she had gone back to college since this incident and was currently undertaking a course since September 2008. Judge Mary Devins convicted and fined her €250 for criminal damage, €30 compensation for the damage to the window and imposed a three-months prison sentence suspended for 12 months.
