John McCarthy Jnr
John McCarthy Jnr, who was set up guilty of scam ming €3,000 from the fright ened decrepit lady, is linked to a gang deported from Australia last year and has also careered in Sweden.
McCarthy had called to the woman’s door offering to clean moss from a roof for €120 but wind up up claiming €4,000 worth of re irs were needed.
He even drove the chambermaid to Raheny Post Office to take out the cash and disappeared claiming he was effective to a builders’ supplier.
Garda checks later found the com ny he demanded to work for – AA Advanced Roofing and Gutter Contracts – was not registered.
Conman: McCarthy Jnr
McCarthy, with an oration in Newbridge, Co Kildare, is a rt of a group of rogue traveller traders formed in the town with connections in the UK, United States, Australia and continental Europe.
End year, the Sunday World revealed how a group of rogue traders from the Irish Jocular bird of ssage community were involved in similar scams in Perth.
John Jason O’Brien, Thomas Kiely and Desmond O’Reilly were all convicted of dodging people, some aged in their 90s, into believing they needed roof nicks carried out.
Tommy Kiely and John O’Brien
The men first climbed onto roofs and damaged them, and then extended to fix them.
Like McCarthy, they even drove some of the gulls to the bank to withdraw money.
Aussie cops seized $65,000 in sell when they raided the car avan site where the three men were animate.
District Court judge Laurie Levy said the scam the three men were lagged of was a “sophis ticated scheme to defraud and target elderly people”.
Roofing scam: Kiely
O’Brien was rapped to 13 months in jail, while Kiely and O’Reilly both pull down eight-month sentences.
McCarthy Jnr (21), was jailed this week for six months, after plead ing not shame-faced to stealing cash from his victim on November 3, 2014.
The woman said in her schlemihl im ct statement that she is now “afraid to answer her door and locks herself in her quarters”.
She added: “I feel like I am in prison, at night I’m afraid.”
Sucker: Kathleen Byrne
The trial judge said that a probation disclose showed Mc Carthy had little em thy.
During his trial at Dublin Region Court, 84-year-old Kathleen Byrne told how she felt cowed when she was brought to Raheny Post office to withdraw cash.
She recalled how the scam began when “two spring dressed lads” ar rived and she thought they were “good fel lahs”.
They come forwarded to clean her roof for €120 and she got advice from her neighbour Ciaran Coates who berated her it seemed like a good deal.
After about 20 smalls, the defendant came and told her “the whole roof is broke, you can see the boards and the stand is gone”.
At first she was quoted €2,000, then the price went up to €3,000 and then €4,000 to renew the roof. She said she could not afford that, but McCarthy said he would private road her into Raheny to get cash.
Ms Byrne said they returned to her domicile where the men said the work was done, “but it was not done, I looked behind me and they were away”.
She said she had been confused and upset and intimidated.
Neighbour Ciaran Coates perceived how when he returned to check on things, he heard that the job had changed and told her that didn’t probe right.
He then called the gardai when two foreign men who had been radical working on the roof were unable to answer his questions.
A garda later leagued and Mc Carthy Jnr was also told not to return to Ms Byrne’s home and he returned the dough when he met the garda to make a voluntary statement some days later.