A babysitter managed to crack two different safes belonging to her employers and stole a total of €8,000.
Marian Rodgers got a job as a residential childminder for a family in Letterkenny after losing her job in the insurance business.
Rodgers, 25, owed money on a car loan which she could not pay and began to steal from the safe of her new employer Sarah McDevitt.
Detective Garda Alfie McHale told Letterkenny District Court that he investigated claims that amounts between €400 and €2,500 had been taken from the safe at Ms McDevitt’s home in Letterkenny between August 2011 and March, 2012.
He told the court that when money went missing from the safe initially, it had ben replaced with a new safe but that too was breached by the thief.
Det. Garda McHale said he later saw the accused in the Oldtown area of Letterkenny and arrested her.
A search of her car found items that included an envelope with the victim’s name on it and eleven used AIB banking bags and €394.45 in coins.
Solicitor Michael Gillespie said the sum had now been repaid in full and she was fully co-operative with Gardai at all times.
Rodgers, from Annagry East, moved to Lettekenny five years ago to work in the insurance business and secured a car loan at that time. Within a year she had lost her job and ended up in a “financial mess” and turned to money-lenders in an effort to keep her car.
It was then she started child minding and became a residential child minder for Ms McDevitt.
It was while in a “desperate state” she took the money as she had no one to confide in with her problems within her own family.
She suffered acute anxiety and depression at the time and had a “unrealistic belief she could sort this out.”
He added she was ashamed of her actions and wishes to apologise to the McDevitt family. She is now working in a shop and earning just over €200 a week.
Judge Paul Kelly said there was a series of incidents over a period of seven to eight months during which a considerable degree of trust had been shown by the injured party.
Judge Kelly convicted Rodgers on one count of theft, fined her €500 and took all other charges into consideration.