Man smashed windows of 12 cars during crime spree

An Athlone man who smashed the windows of 12 cars over the course of five days in February, and committed a total of ten thefts over the course of two weeks in March, has been jailed.

Dylan West (28), with an address in Shannon Close, Excise Street, Athlone, appeared before Judge Bernadette Owens at Athlone District Court last Wednesday, where he faced a total of 28 charges for theft, burglary and criminal damage offences committed in January, February and March of this year.

Mr West, who has been in custody since March 19, entered guilty pleas to all 28 charges before the court.

The litany of offences began on January 6, at Spar, Garrycastle, when he stole €70 worth of groceries.

Further charges on dates between January 30 and February 3, include smashing the windows of two vehicles at Innis House, Irishtown, Athlone, five vehicles at Golden Island, and five vehicles at the Quay.

Within that date range, on February 3 at Golden Island, he is charged with stealing a laptop from one of the cars he smashed. The laptop was valued at €2,000. A laptop bag valued at €100, a kindle worth €100 and a bottle of champagne were also among items stolen from the vehicle.

The previous day, on February 2, at approximately 5am, he stole a wallet with €30 in it after smashing in the passenger window of a car parked up on the Quay.

The total worth of the damage caused to all 12 cars was €5,000, with €2,500 worth of damage done to one car alone as the centre console and windows were smashed.

Also within that date range, on February 2, Mr West stole a Michael Kors handbag to the value of €150, which contained €200 cash and a passport card to the value of €35.

The court heard how, at 10.35pm on Church Street, a female was walking down the street with her friend when a male snatched her handbag and fled. The entire incident was captured on CCTV.

The handbag and purse were recovered, but the cash was not. There were no injuries to the woman and no weapons involved in the incident.

Also among the 28 charges were three burglaries, two of which occurred on February 22, when he went to make purchases at the tills of Griffin’s on Northgate Street, and Dealz in Golden Island, but reached into the tills and seized sums of cash before leaving each premises.

A third burglary took place on March 6, at Applegreen, when he took five bottles of vodka to the value of €153. He was challenged by staff, but ran away.

Further charges of theft took place on March 7, in Centra, Castlemaine Street, where he stole alcohol to the value of €100.

Five further thefts of alcohol and groceries took place at Daybreak, Garrycastle on March 8 and March 9. The total amount of alcohol taken over five separate theft charges was valued at €231.40. The value of the groceries taken was €134.60.

Mr West is also charged with the theft of alcohol to the value of €116.20 from Spar, Garrycastle on March 11, and the theft of cans of Red Bull to the value of €20 on March 14 from Daybreak, Garrycastle.

Finally, the court heard how, on March 12, Mr West entered Spar, Garrycastle, filled two boxes with chicken from the self-serve deli, before taking alcohol, totalling a value of €69.39. When challenged by staff, he shouted at them and left the store.

Mr West has 43 previous convictions including ten for theft-related offences, four for criminal damage, seven for burglary and one for robbery. The remaining convictions include possession of firearms or offensive weapons, public order, road traffic related offences, assault, a drugs offence, and one for possession of a mobile phone while in prison.

Patrick Carty, defending Mr West, told the court that his client “ran with a bad crowd” and “didn’t deal well with addiction” while in custody.

He was released from prison around the middle of October last year after serving a four-month sentence for theft, and was receiving methadone, but “fell back into old patterns of offending”.

“He tends, invariably, to make full admissions once asked to. He felt his return to prison might have been inevitable once he committed a small number of offences and he kept going. There’s a sense of hopelessness there,” said Mr Carty.

He added that his client has a supportive family but it “wasn’t enough to push him onto the straight and narrow”.

There was no violence involved in the offences and there are no “serious” aggravating factors.

Judge Owens, having gone through the charges, proceeded to sentence Mr West to six months in prison for what she considered the “most serious” of the crimes - the theft of the handbag from a woman on the street.

For the criminal damage to one of the cars on the Quay, she imposed a concurrent sentence of six months.

For the burglary charges at Spar and Applegreen, she imposed consecutive sentences of seven months and four months respectively.

All other charges were taken into consideration. Finally, she backdated the sentences to March 19, when Mr West first went into custody.