Ashley Nicholl is led into court yesterday
A 21 year old man who went on a drunken rampage wrecking four holiday homes in Inishowen has been jailed for a total of ten months.
Ashley Nicholl broke into the homes along with two other men during a drunken orgy of destruction on January 31st 2010.
The men wrecked the houses in Moville, Malin and Culdaff which belonged to holiday-home owners from Northern Ireland and the UK.
The men destroyed kitchens, stairs, living rooms, smashed mirrors and broke fridges and televisions during the rampage.
It total they caused more than €56,000 worth of damage to the four properties.
Nicholl was caught when a finger print taken from the scene of the house in Moville matched his when he allowed it to be taken.
Nicholl admitted his part in the crimes but said he didn’t remember all of what happened because he was very drunk.
Letterkenny Circuit Court heard the crimes were very unusual in that very little was taken but it appeared to be just a wanton act of mindless vandalism.
Nicholl wrote a letter to the court and apologised for what he had done and promised to get a job and would try to repay the money when he did.
Judge John O’Hagan held up photos of the damage to one of the properties for the courtroom to see.
He said that such areas depend vastly on tourism and warned that people like Nicholl was putting the tourism industry in great danger by sending out messages like this to potential visitors.
Nicholl’s mother was in court with her son and Judge O’Hagan thanked her for coming but told Nicholl that she must be very ashamed of him for what he had done.
He sentenced him to two years for each of the four burglaries with all sentences to run concurrently.
He also suspended the last year and backdated the sentence from when Nicholl first entered prison in May.