A CHRONIC heroin addict who attacked and robbed a vulnerable pensioner the toilet of a Limerick shopping centre has been jailed for five years.
Martin Morey, (24) of no fixed abode but with a previous address in McGarry House, Alphonsus Street, Limerick admitted robbing the 85-year-old pensioner on July 30 last at the Roxboro Shopping Centre.
Detective Michael Dunne told Limerick Circuit Court that Gardaí were alerted to the robbery when the elderly man was seen stumbling along the shopping centre corridor, with blood streaming down his face.
Martin Morey had collected his disability payments the day before the robbery but, after paying a drug debt, he was desperate for more money.
He was seen on CCTV picking up cigarette butts in the shopping centre car park and waiting at the entrance to the toilets.
When the elderly man entered the toilet, Morey pinned him to the wall causing him to strike his head off the cistern. He took the older man’s wallet containing €80 cash and a mobile phone and fled the scene. He went to his girlfriend’s house where he changed his clothes in an attempt to distance himself from the crime.
An ambulance was called for the pensioner who was treated for a laceration to his forehead and two black eyes.
The victim said that he was thankful that he did not have to come to court.
Describing the incident as an appalling attack on elderly person, Judge Tom O’Donnell rejected a suggestion that there was an element of opportunity to the crime.
Noting that Morey had a number of previous convictions, he said it was clear he continues to reoffend, despite the imposition of prison sentences.
He accepted the “fractured family background” and the “instability” that Morey had in his life from an early age as well as his desire to beat his addictions.
Imposing a five year sentence, Judge O’Donnell said it was an “appalling attack on a vulnerable man and something that is totally unacceptable.
