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Kilbeggan Fuel Supplier Convicted Of Stealing Bus

Thursday, 29 July 2010

A FUEL supplier took a bus because the coach company's owner owed 98,000 Euros, Tullamore District Court heard.
John McGee of McGee Oil in Kilbeggan admitted taking a Town Link bus belonging to Des O'Connell of Sliabh Bloom coaches but said he did so with the owner's consent.
He was fined a total of €8,000 and disqualified from driving for two years when he appeared before Judge John Coughlan.
Mr McGee faced charges alleging theft of the bus and driving without insurance at Arden Road, Tullamore in September last year and his solicitor, Ms Aisling Maloney, said her case would be that her client had consent to take the vehicle.
The prosecution was conducted by Inspector Joe Prendergast and his first witness was Nicolaas Coetzee, who said he was the driver of a 28-seater bus in Tullamore on September 7 last year.
The bus belonged to his boss, the witness said, and it was parked near the hospital in Tullamore and he was sitting in the back of it having a break.
John McGee got on the bus, which had one passenger on board, and said he was taking it because he was owed money by Mr O'Connell, the owner.
Mr Coetzee said he told the defendant he could not take the bus but Mr McGee got into the driver's seat and started it using the starter button.
The witness telephoned the owner and spoke to Mr O'Connell's son John. He also decided to stay on the bus which was driven to Kilbeggan by Mr McGee.
They went to a warehouse where Mr McGee told the witness to get out of the bus. Mr Coetzee told the court he was 'a little bit afraid' and did not know what was going on.
Cross-examined by Ms Maloney, Mr Coetzee said the defendant told him his name when he got on the bus.
He said he did sit in the front seat but denied showing Mr McGee how to start the bus.
Asked why he had called his boss instead of the gardai, the witness said he didn't know how to call the gardai and that would be a matter for his boss.
When Ms Maloney asked Mr Coetzee if he knew Mr O'Connell had given consent to Mr McGee to drive the bus, the witness said he did not.
Desmond O'Connell said in evidence that the bus was a wheelchair accessible vehicle which was used for the Town Link service and when it was unavailable it was very awkward.
He recalled receiving a phone call from Mr McGee on a day when he was loading luggage onto a bus for people who were travelling from Stradbally to Dublin after the concert there.
Mr McGee told him he had 'one of your buses' when they spoke later and Mr O'Connell said he would ring the guards.
Mr O'Connell said Mr McGee replied 'ring who you like' and the bus owner rang the gardai.
Mr O'Connell added that Mr McGee told him he was behind in paying for fuel. He said he got the bus back two months later and did a deal with Mr McGee and gave him some money.
The bus owner said he owed Mr McGee €98,000 for fuel and stated he had not given Mr McGee permission to drive the bus.
Replying to Ms Maloney, Mr O'Connell recalled a meeting with Mr McGee on Saturday, September 5, the Saturday before the bus was taken.
He denied promising Mr McGee €50,000 the following Monday morning and denied saying 'you can have a bus' when the defendant told him he'd have to 'have a bus' unless something was sorted about the money owed.
Mr O'Connell added that Mr McGee was 'inclined to fly off the handle'. He agreed with Ms Maloney that a cheque for €1,500 in June and €10,000 in September may have bounced.
He said Mr McGee was offered a bank draft instead of the €10,000 cheque, which bounced twice, but he wouldn't accept it.
When Ms Maloney put it to the witness that 12 cheques bounced Mr O'Connell said they could have but he didn't know. He again denied giving Mr McGee his consent to take the bus.
Ms Maloney then produced a letter from Mr O'Connell to Mr McGee, two months after the incident, about a payment plan for the purchase of diesel from him if it was paid for in cash.
Mr O'Connell said his company had decided to fill their vehicles day by day at pumps after the loss of a Dublin service. The current balance on the account with Mr McGee was €56,000 and he was paying it every month.
When Ms Maloney asked Mr O'Connell about how he had contacted the gardai after his bus was taken, the witness said he rang the gardai in Tullamore first and then rang Kilbeggan.
He agreed that he lived about two or three miles from Sgt Pascal Hanrahan and when the solicitor put it to him that he had called to him as a neighbour, asking for a favour, he said 'maybe' he rang him as well.
Judge Coughlan then asked the witness about the status of his driver and Mr O'Connell said he was a South African man who was 'legal' and had his PPS number. Judge Coughlan said he would have to be checked out.
Sgt Pascal Hanrahan told the court that in September last year he received a phone call at his home from Mr O'Connell about a bus taken from Tullamore and he said he had phoned Tullamore and Kilbeggan garda stations.
Sgt Hanrahan said he called to Mr O'Connell's home and took a statement from him and investigated the matter.
Sgt Hanrahan said that while Mr McGee did have insurance, it would not cover him to drive the vehicle if he did not have permission to do so.
In relation to how contact was made with him, Sgt Hanrahan said he had an 'official phone' and as many as 250,000 people could have its number because of his work with events like the National Ploughing and the Fleadh Cheoil.
He added that he regularly received phone calls at home in relation to his garda work.
Replying to Ms Maloney, Sgt Hanrahan said he was not on duty when he took the call from Mr O'Connell. He said he had been stationed in Mountmellick for about 10 years and knew most of the people there.
He also said he would not use his job to do favours for anyone and stated that if he had been using pressure on Mr McGee the bus would not have been in his possession for two months.
John McGee then gave evidence and said he was the owner and director of McGee Oil and had been dealing with Mr O'Connell's company for two years.
Payment terms were agreed whereby Mr O'Connell would pay 'every couple of weeks' and McGee Oil used to bring oil to his 5,000 litre tank.
Mr McGee said a dozen or more cheques from Mr O'Connell had come back or 'hopped' but the bus company owner would come over with a bank draft or a Credit Union cheque to clear the amounts.
Because of the recession oil companies were cutting back on credit so himself and Mr O'Connell came to an agreement that it would be 'cash from now on'.
A cheque for €10,000 had come back unpaid and on Saturday, September 5 he met Mr O'Connell and was told he'd be over the following Monday morning with €50,000.
Mr McGee said he told Mr O'Connell he'd 'have to have a bus' and the bus owner replied he could 'have a bus or whatever you like'.
Mr McGee said he rang Mr O'Connell on the Monday and was told he'd ring back but Mr O'Connell did not ring back.
The defendant stated he then got a lift into Tullamore and got onto the bus and spoke to the driver who asked him if Des owed him money to which Mr McGee said he replied 'a lot'.
Mr McGee said the driver and the passenger, a girl, stayed on the bus and the man helped the defendant drive it.
He drove the bus to a lock-up in Kilbeggan and then dropped the driver and passenger back to Tullamore.
Mr McGee said that when the gardai came to him he told them Des O'Connell gave him permission to have the bus in lieu of money outstanding and until the account was sorted.
He said he had insurance for buses, trucks, a car and a garage and he had insurance to drive the bus because he had permission to drive it.
The defendant also said he received €2,000 from Mr O'Connell 'the other day' and €56,800 was now the amount outstanding.
Replying to Inspector Prendergast, Mr McGee said he was trying to employ 10 people and had to pay oil companies. He described what Mr O'Connell had done as 'theft' and denied taking the law into his own hands.
He repeated that on Saturday, September 5 in his own forecourt in Kilbeggan Mr O'Connell had given him consent to take a bus.
Inspector Prendergast said that Mr O'Connell would not have given the defendant permission to take a bus when he was in the 'middle of a run' between Mountmellick, Portarlington and Tullamore. Mr McGee said he had.
That concluded the evidence and Judge Coughlan said it was a 'very straightforward' case where the defendant had stolen the bus and driven it without insurance.
Inspector Prendergast said Mr McGee had six previous convictions, including road traffic offences, public order offences, criminal damage and possession of a knuckleduster.
The latter offence had been in 2004 and he had received a 10-month suspended sentence for it.
Ms Maloney said her client was a 38-year-old separated man with one daughter who had worked hard to keep his business and had matured since the earlier offences.
Judge Coughlan said he would think about the penalty he would impose over lunch.
When he returned Ms Maloney told him her client took his responsibilities in relation to insurance very seriously and he spent €30,000 annually on premiums. She also said he needed his driving licence.
Judge Coughlan imposed a fine of €4,000 for unauthorised taking of the bus and another €4,000 for driving it without insurance.
He also disqualified Mr McGee from driving for two years and endorsed his licence.
In the event of an appeal, Judge Coughlan said that €9,000 cash would have to be lodged.
Ms Maloney said she wished to lodge an appeal and asked if the court would accept €3,000 cash and a cheque for the balance.
Judge Coughlan said he would only accept 'cash, cash, cash' and told the solicitor she would have to lodge the money first and then put in the appeal.

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