A Galway man was convicted and fined €300 and ordered to hand over €500 compensation for passing two cheques that bounced at Ballinrobe District Court. Mark Keane pleaded guilty to the charges in court, in a case which his solicitor Cathy McDarby said had “no malice in it”.
Giving evidence Garda Daryll Mullen told the court that on September 23 2008 Mark Keane, Camilaun Park, Newcastle, Co Galway, entered Finley’s filling station Ballinrobe and handed over a cheque for €250. He got purchases to the value of €62 and received cash in return for the rest of the value of the cheque. But when the proprietor went to cash the cheque it was returned to him as there was no money in the account to pay it. Continuing his evidence Garda Mullen told the court that on September 14 Keane went into the Statoil filling station in Ballinrobe and similarly handed over a cheque for €250 and bought some goods and received the rest of the value of the cheque in cash. This again failed to clear when lodged by the proprietor.
Garda Mullen outlined to the court that Keane had a number of convictions in the past, 21 of which were for forgery. Ms McDarby, on behalf of her client, told the court that Keane though there was an overdraft on his account and he would get a letter from the bank alerting him to this, but in fact his overdraft facility had been cancelled by the bank. She continued to say that although Keane had a history of convictions for crimes like this, the last one was in 2002 and he was a different person now and this was a genuine mistake and there was no malice involved.
Judge Devins convicted and fined Keane €300 and ordered him to hand over the €500 compensation he had in court to the two injured parties.
