A MAN behind a €56k rampage through holiday homes in Inishowen has been given community service.
Bernard McDaid broke into the homes along with two other men – Ashley Nicholl and a third man on the run from Gardai – during a drunken orgy of destruction on January 31, 2010.
The men wrecked the houses in Moville, Malin and Culdaff which belonged to holiday-home owners from Derry and Britain.
The men destroyed kitchens, stairs, living rooms, smashed mirrors and broke fridges and televisions during the rampage.
In total they caused more than €56,000 worth of damage to the four properties.
Bernard McDaid was named by his co-accused and a finger print linked him to crime scenes.
McDaid was drunk and high on drugs at the time.
Nicholl was jailed for two years last summer for each of the four burglaries with all sentences to run concurrently, with the last year suspended.
When McDaid, 22, appeared in court last November, he told the judge that he had been offered a job working for a kitchen company and hoped to take it up.
“I was very stupid and I was taking ecstasy,” he said, apologising for what he had done.
Judge O’Hagan said he wanted to see proof of a job and adjourned sentence.
At a previous hearing barrister Damian Crawford said his client had returned to England.
He said McDaid’s job offer from a kitchen company had also fallen through because he was banned from driving, and had decided instead to take a job on a building site in London.
In Letterkenny Circuit Court yesterday Judge O’Hagan detailed the crime spree.
“This was a terrible affair and a lot of damage was done,” said the judge.
The court heard Nicholl had 29 previous convictions when he was sentenced whilst McDaid had seven previous convictions, all for motoring offences.
The judge said McDaid had “faced up” to the offences.
He imposed the same sentence as given to Nicholl but substituted 240 hours community service in lieu of the prison sentence on all four counts.
Judge O’Hagan warned McDaid not to be “running off back to London” and warned him that he would go to jail for two years if he didn’t engage with the probation service.