Tallaght man stole €18k worth of electronics and computers from Brookfield Centre

By Laura Colgan

A Tallaght man has been jailed for 20 months for his part in stealing €18,000 worth of computers and electronics from a youth centre.

Liam Fox (19), of Rossfield Park, Tallaght, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to burglary at Brookfield Youth and Community Centre on November 7, 2014.

Eilis Brennan, SC, prosecuting, said the value of the stolen goods was €18,000 and included five Dell laptops worth €600 each, three Playstations, iPads, Apple Macbooks, a digital camera and memory sticks. She said a glass door and filing cabinet were also damaged.

Garda Lorna Loughney of Tallaght Garda Station said the burglary, which lasted 55 minutes, was filmed on CCTV and Mr Fox was one of four teenagers identified by gardaí.

She said this event pre-dated an aggravated burglary that Fox is currently serving a sentence for by a few days. In that offence threats were made to rape a woman and cut off her son’s fingers with a meat cleaver, although it was accepted these did not come from Fox.

She said Fox was one of three teenagers jailed for that offence and was currently serving an eight-year sentence with three-and-a-half years suspended.

The court also heard Fox has previous convictions for criminal damage, burglaries, entering a building with intent and minor road traffic offences.

Sarah-Jane O’Callaghan BL, defending, said that Fox never came to the attention of gardaí prior to the “spate of weeks” in which both burglaries took place in November 2014.

She said Fox had no problems with his family or at school and was doing well within the prison system.

Judge Martin Nolan sentenced Fox to 20 months in prison, to run concurrently with the eight-year sentence he is already serving.

Handing down the sentence, Judge Nolan said Fox had the chance to prove himself when he was released from prison in March 2018.

“It seems to me he is a young man serving a long sentence. When he is released he has the chance to prove himself again. 

Hopefully he will be reformed by that time and won’t get back into trouble again,” he said.

Judge Nolan also warned Fox that if he found himself in court again after his release, he would “be put in jail for a very long time”.