A disgraced hospital healthcare assistant who stole a dying man’s financial institution card to go playing has narrowly escaped going to jail.
A decide informed Sean O’Neill “the one factor that's saving you” from going to Maghaberry “is the truth that no cash was really taken, although that’s not due to something you probably did”.
The 32-year-old was handed a six-month jail sentence for the “nasty offence’’, however suspended for 3 years.
At an earlier listening to O’Neill, from Cypress Park in Ballymena, confessed to a single depend of fraud by abuse of place on March 16 this 12 months.
The sufferer was receiving palliative care at Antrim Space Hospital when his daughter seen her dad had £190 and his financial institution card in his pockets.
Later that day, nevertheless, one other customer noticed that the money was lacking and a short while later, the dying man’s cellphone acquired messages from the financial institution about an tried transaction of £200 to William Hill On-line and asking for affirmation.
Fortunately, the household was in a position to put a halt on the transactions and the lawyer mentioned police investigations with the bookmaker revealed that the financial institution card had been used to “fund a web based betting account registered within the title of Sean O’Neill”.
Three days after the tried con, the person sadly died.
Arrested and interviewed O’Neill confessed attempting to take £450 in three tried transactions however denied stealing the money from the affected person’s pockets.
Lodging a plea in mitigation, O’Neill’s defence solicitor mentioned that regardless of his beforehand clear file, O’Neill “has misplaced his repute, his good title and he'll seemingly lose his job”.
She described the “very distasteful offence” as a “second of insanity” by O’Neill. The courtroom was informed he's now present process counselling and therapy for his playing habit. O’Neill nodded his head in settlement when the lawyer mentioned he was “crammed with regret and disgrace”.
Sentencing O’Neill, the decide informed him his clear file and counselling had been additionally preserving him out of jail for his “gross breach of belief”. “It's a main intrusion on the sufferer’s private funds and it will have had a knock-on impact on his household,” he informed O’Neill.