Clondalkin man pays back €2k for unnecessary roof repairs

By Brendan Grehan

A CLONDALKIN man who persuaded an OAP to pay him €3570 for unnecessary roof repairs has paid back €2,000 in Blanchardstown Court.

Judge Miriam Walsh has given Charles O’Brien until May to come up with the remaining €1,570.

O’Brien, aged 37, with an address at Rosebank Place, Clondalkin, had pleaded guilty to three charges of getting a named individual to pay him €570, €1500 and €1500 respectively for unnecessary roof repairs at an address at Cappaghmore Estate, Clondalkin, all on a date unknown between March 11 and March 18, 2016.

The court had heard that O’Brien and another man had called to an elderly man’s house in Cappaghmore Estate in Clondalkin and told the man that the roof needed repairing when it didn’t.

Between March 11, 2016 and March 18, 2016 , the injured party paid €3,570 over to O’Brien.

At one stage O’Brien produced two rotten bits of wood that he claimed he had taken from the roof when he hadn’t.

O’Brien’s solicitor, Simon Fleming, told Judge Miriam Walsh that O’Brien had €2,000 in court.

He said O’Brien’s brother had died in the interim and had difficulty coming up with the full amount but had received help from his family.

He asked the judge to put the case back to a date in May for payment of the remaining €1,570.

Judge Walsh remanded O’Brien on continuing bail to a date in May for payment of the remaining €1,570 and for sentencing.