Offaly burglary victim thought man 'was going to knife him'
TULLAMORE Circuit Court heard how the same man was involved in two aggravated burglaries at separate houses more than a year apart in Clara.
Wayne Dolan, aged 35 and with an address at Erry Mill Cottage, Frederick Street, Clara is in custody in Cloverhill Prison awaiting sentence for aggravated burglaries at Kinclare, Clara on September 1, 2019 and Chapel Hill, Clara on December 13, 2020.
Mr Dolan appeared at the April sitting of the Circuit Court for a sentencing hearing in relation to the 2020 offence and after evidence was given about that burglary he entered a guilty plea to the other.
He had initially denied both burglaries. Details of the Kinclare offence were heard at a trial in July last year but Judge Keenan Johnson discharged the jury after prejudicial evidence was given by a garda.
Then in December last year he pleaded guilty to the Chapel Hill burglary and also admitted causing criminal damage and possessing certain items at the time.
A retrial was being scheduled for later this year in the Kinclare case but on April 6 last a guilty plea was entered to it too.
Outlining the facts of the Chapel Hill offence, Garda Eoin Mulhare, Clara, told the court that Gary Cronly had heard noises at his residence and by looking at footage on his phone from cameras he could see someone outside leaving on a bike.
When he went out the back the man who was “completely off his face” came at him and was “going to knife him” so Mr Cronly grabbed his dog and went inside and called the guards.
Mr Cronly told gardai the man had something in his hands and he also noticed that the door of his garage had been broken.
While he didn't know the person's name he recognised him as a local Clara man and he later told gardai he had been threatened with a knife.
When gardai searched the driveway at the house they found a long screwdriver, a wood chisel, yellow snips and a used plastic syringe.
Garda Mulhare told the court that when audio from the CCTV was played he recognised the voice as Wayne Dolan's.
Garda Mulhare also said a second call was received by the gardai from a woman who had seen someone banging on the windows of her house when she was in the kitchen at about 8.30am.
She recognised him as Wayne Dolan and said he was “falling all around the place” and she reported that to the gardai.
What Garda Mulhare described as “good footage” was recovered from a camera at a pub in Clara and it showed Mr Dolan on his way from his own house.
He was arrested at about 3pm the same day at his home and brought to Tullamore Garda Station where he wasn't co-operative and needed to be seen by a doctor because he was highly intoxicated.
He told the doctor he had drunk 10 cans of alcohol and taken street Xanax and he was deemed unfit for interview.
Later that night when he was still in custody he was aggressive and had to be brought by ambulance to Tullamore Hospital.
He was subsequently returned to the garda station in the early hours of the next day and was interviewed and denied his involvement.
However in a third interview when CCTV was shown to him he said the person looked like him but when the audio was played to him he said “It's not my voice”.
He told gardai the syringe was a friend's and he didn't accept seeing the other items before and denied damaging the door of the garage.
Mr Cronly then picked out the accused in a formal identity parade of 12 individuals and when Mr Dolan was interviewed for a fourth time and the victim's statement was put to him he apologised and said he was trying to change his life.
He took responsibility and said though he was at Chapel Hill he could not remember threatening Mr Cronly but accepted his involvement.
He also accepted that it was he who could be heard in the audio recording saying “Who the f... are you? Do you want the knife? Do you want the knife?” and agree that would be a threatening thing to say to the victim.
Mr Dolan added: “I'm sorry it should not have happened, I'm trying to be drug-free.”
According to the guilty plea entered in relation to the 2019 offence, that aggravated burglary at Kinclare in Clara involved the use of either a knife or a shovel.
Along with admitting to the burglary, he also pleaded guilty to assaulting Derek Tuite, causing him harm, at Railway View, Clara on the same date.
According to evidence given at last year's mistrial, those charges against Mr Dolan arose from a burglary at the home of a pensioner living at 3 Kinclare on September 1, 2019.
The pensioner John Sheerin told the trial he had been awoken and attacked by two men with a shovel and a knife during a burglary.
Mr Sheerin said he went to bed in his home at Kinclare at about 2am and then noticed his dog barking at about 5am.
Two men came into his bedroom. “They said they'd kill me if I didn't give them money,” he told the trial.
The jury heard he was then dragged from his bed in his pyjamas to the kitchen and €700 in €50 notes was taken from his wallet which was in a jacket on a chair.
Mr Sheerin said both men were masked and he couldn't see their faces but one was wearing a black jacket with white stripes on the sleeves.
He said after the men left he went to Clara garda station but it was closed and he then called to a neighbour's house and asked Paddy Scanlon to ring the gardai.
He said he had collected his pension on Friday and the incident happened on the Saturday night/Sunday morning.
Mr Sheerin said the men had tights over their heads, had a shovel each, and one of them had a lamp.
The person without the lamp had a knife with a black handle and a silver blade, he added.
Mr Sheerin said he also told the guards that the men “talked like foreigners”, and also that they talked in broken English and had “more of an English accent” and he thought they were English.
He said the knife he saw wasn't his and he also noticed later that a shovel was missing from his shed.
The trial heard Mr Sheerin say he had been robbed “a long time before” as well, when his wallet was taken off his table.
Derek Tuite gave evidence that Wayne Dolan and another man had been having a few drinks with him in his home at 5 Railway View on the night of August 30, 2019 and they then left at about 1.30am or 2am, telling him to leave the door unlocked.
He said he locked the door and went to bed but woke later to find the two men surrounding him in his room.
Mr Tuite said they were shouting at him and asking him why he locked the door. He said he was struck on the nose, causing it to bleed onto the bedclothes and a sharp object was put to his throat.
He did not know how they got into the house and he also said in evidence that they told him they had robbed someone and he saw about €300 in cash in €50 notes.
A shovel was produced at the trial, as was a bag containing bloodstained bedclothes.
The jury also heard from Detective Sergeant Caroline Lyng, who led the investigation, that fingerprint and DNA evidence had been gathered by scenes of crime officers at Mr Sheerin's residence but nothing was found which would connect the accused with the burglary there.
Det Sergeant Lyng said she was not surprised that no forensic evidence had been found because in her experience criminals had become forensically aware.
When Mr Dolan pleaded guilty to the burglary at Kinclare and the assault on Mr Tuite, the court heard he had been on bail at the time and had 79 previous convictions.
Sentences of between four months and three years had previously been imposed on him for offences dating back to 2011 including burglary, robbery and assault in courts in Cork, Athlone and Limerick.
Defence counsel Colm Smyth, SC (instructed by Donal Farrelly, solicitor), said Mr Dolan had been a heroin addict who was on methadone but was awaiting confirmation of the availability of a bed in a treatment centre.
The 10 cans of alcohol had been drunk between 6pm and 11pm the night before the Chapel Hill offence.
Mr Smyth said he believed the full-time residential treatment programme would begin on April 21 and would last seven months.
Kevin White, BL, prosecuting (instructed by Sandra Mahon, Offaly state solicitor) said a sentencing hearing will be scheduled for the Circuit Court sitting in July.
Judge Johnson remanded Mr Dolan in custody for mention on July 19 but made an order that he can be released directly to a treatment bed when it become available.
He warned that if Mr Dolan left the treatment centre without completing the course his bail would be revoked. He also directed the preparation of victim impact reports in relation to the Kinclare and Railway View offences.