by Andrew Carey
andrew@limerickpost.ie
A LIMERICK grandmother was so strapped for cash after being refused loans that she stole a baby’s milk bottle worth €4.99 from a local pharmacy.
The 63-year-old mother, who recently became a grandmother, told Limerick District Court that she was dependant on social welfare and had sought loans to pay for a gift for her new baby grandchild but was refused as people felt the money would not be used for that.
Judge Marian O’Leary heard that the woman from the southside of the city, had been prosecuted for a similar offence four months earlier after she took an item of jewellery from Penneys on O’Connell Street valued at just €2.
Defence solicitor John Devane said his client had ongoing medical issues, suffered from her nerves and was attending her medical doctor for treatment in relation to psychological issues. She had asked someone else for a loan but was refused when they felt it wouldn’t be used to buy the present for her granschild.
He said she was “extremely embarrassed and sorry for the theft and the shame it brought to her family”.
Judge O’Leary said the woman “clearly hasn’t learned any lessons from her last conviction, which was just four months ago.”
Adjourning the case to November, she warned the grandmother that the case would be dealt with “very differently” if she appears before the court before then.
