A Co Donegal mother-of-one who stole almost €3,000 from a family she was baby-sitting for has narrowly avoided going to jail for Christmas – after she forged a doctor’s note to delay a court appearance.
Denise Wilson received a two month suspended jail sentence at Letterkenny District Court in May, 2023 after being convicted of theft on the agreement that she pay back the cash she stole.
Ms Wilson, of Bught Road, Ramelton, was charged with a total of five counts of theft.
The court heard that Wilson, aged 36, was employed as a childminder for the couple’s young children, and had engaged in a series of thefts of cash from their family home.
Some of the cash stolen belonged to the couple’s children and had been hidden in a wardrobe in the couple’s bedroom.
One incident related to the theft of money from the victim’s mother – who was suffering from dementia.
Mr Frank Dorian, representing Ms Wilson, said his client had admitted the matter at an early stage in the investigation and taken full responsibility for what occurred.
He proffered an apology on her behalf and outlined his client was prepared to repay in full the amount stolen, €2,720.00.
Judge Eiteán Cunningham indicated the case involved a significant breach of trust, was a serious matter and approved the repayment to the victims.
She sentenced Ms Wilson to two months imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, noting she had no previous convictions.
However, Ms Wilson failed to pay over the compensation to her victims.
The matter was returned to court but Ms Wilson wrote to Gardai saying she was unwell and offered a doctor’s medical certificate.
It then transpired that the medical cert had been tampered with.
At a court sitting in early December, Wilson was warned by Judge Cunningham to come up with a plan to pay compensation she owes.
The Judge issued Wilson with a stern dressing-down and warned her she risked spending Christmas behind bars, away from her young child, if she failed to satisfy the court.
At that stage, the compensation had not yet been discharged and Wilson, in an attempt to put her day in court back to the New Year, falsified the date on a medical note certifying that she was unfit to appear.
Two weeks ago, Detective Sergeant Frank McDaid gave evidence of arresting Wilson by arrangement on foot of a bench warrant.
Detective Sergeant McDaid told how he attended Wilson’s home two days previously and couldn’t get access. Wilson, who communicated with the Gardai via email, did not turn up to court.
A doctor, Waleed Abdullah, told the court that the certificate was issued to Wilson to cover a period of one week but was changed to three months.
“There is some forgery,” Dr Abdullah said before Judge Cunningham issued a bench warrant for Wilson’s arrest adding that this was a serious matter.
Solicitor Mr Frank Dorrian told the court that the doctor’s certificate was tampered with by Wilson who was living in circumstances where she felt “under pressure” to pay the money.
“There is pressure,” Judge Cunningham interjected. “I deem this a very serious offence.”
Mr Dorrian said that a failure to discharge the compensation order arose from Wilson “to a large extent hiding from it”. He said Wilson did have a medical condition which caused her to be in hospital and she “opportunistically” changed the cert to a date in January, 2025 when she hoped to be able to address the matter.
Mr Dorrian said Wilson is apologetic, but has “no proper explanation”.
Judge Cunningham said there was a “flagrant breach” of a court order. The original offending behaviour was that of deception and she had continued to deceive the court, Judge Cunningham said.
Judge Cunningham said she was “really struggling” not to impose the suspended element of the sentence in the matter.
“The court had to issue a warrant to bring her to court and there had to be time taken out of a doctor’s day to advise that what the court suspected is what happened,” Judge Cunningham said.
“It was absolutely immediately apparent on the medical certificate; it was so obviously doctored. Did she think that I wouldn’t pick up on that?”
Mr Dorrian told the court that his client was the mother of a three-year-old child and Judge Cunningham said: “The mother of a three-year-old child should know better.”
Judge Cunningham said she wanted proposals brought to her in two weeks’ time. She warned Wilson that a failure to attend on the next date will see the court have no discretion.
“Your three-year-old doesn’t want to be without you this Christmas,” Judge Cunningham told Wilson. “I don’t accept the scenario that you felt ‘under pressure’: You are under pressure. You are obliged to discharge a court order.
“I find it absolutely the most serious thing where you tried to deceive the court in circumstances where you are here on offences where the very essence was deception.”
Wilson was granted bail in her own bond of 200, nil cash, on condition that she commit no further offence and remain of good behaviour and appear in court at each and every remand.
Wilson appeared in court yesterday (Monday) along with her father.
Her solicitor, Mr Dorrian, said that all the compensation monies had now been paid and told Judge Cunningham that she would never see Ms Wilson in court again.
Responding, the Judge said she was satisfied that money had been paid but that she was not satisfied by the manner which Ms Wilson had approached either party.
“I’m not going to put it any further,” said Judge Cunningham warning the accused not to come before the court again on any charge of a similar nature.
She added that she was conscious of the fact that Ms Wilson has a three year old child saying the child needed her mother over Christmas adding that she was not going to invoke the suspended sentence.
“That concludes the matter before the court,” added Judge Cunningham.
