A judge has postponed the sentencing of a gambling addict who stole an estimated €84,000 of laptops from his Shannon-based employer as his daughter is sitting her Leaving Cert in June.
At
Ennis Circuit Court, Andrew McMorran pleaded guilty to 21 sample counts (out of 117) of stealing Dell Latitude Laptops from his employer, the Pepper Group of Westpark Business Campus, Shannon on dates between July 1, 2021 and March 31, 2023.
Judge Francis Comerford said that Mr McMorran “is at significant risk in this case” in the sentencing for the offences.
The court has heard that Mr McMorran was hooked on sports betting on his smartphone at the time when he was able to steal the laptops due to ‘very lax’ stock supervision procedures in place.
Mr McMorran, aged 43, with an address at Rosewood Rise, Bandon, County Cork was stealing the laptops and putting them up for sale on DoneDeal in order to fund his gambling addiction.
Counsel for the State, Sarah Jane Comerford BL, instructed by State Solicitor for Clare, Aisling Casey, told the court that Mr McMorran has a previous conviction for a similar offence for which he received a suspended 30-month prison term and was fined €15,000.
That conviction was recorded in June 2023 and related to 29 counts of stealing Lenovo laptops from a Cork based multinational pharma firm between October 2020 and January 2021.
Before imposing sentence in relation to the Shannon offences, Judge Comerford queried if the Pepper Group thefts took place while Mr McMorran was on bail for the Cork offences.
Ms Comerford said the indictment covered Mr McMorran’s date of employment June 2021 to March 2023.
She added that Mr McMorran may have been on bail for some of the offences but the State has no evidence to that effect and if there is any doubt, the benefit of any doubt has to accrue to the accused.
Noting that Mr McMorran has a daughter doing her Leaving Cert later this year, Judge Comerford said that he was inclined to postpone sentencing.
Ms Comerford commented “that is kind” and she suggested that sentencing take place in July.
She said the case could be adjourned to the next call over on May 30 to fix a date for sentence in July and Judge Comerford agreed.
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Mr McMorran worked in the IT department at financial firm, Pepper Advantage Ireland where he would format laptops and give them out to new employees or employees working from home.
Det Garda Colm Moriarty previously told the court that when the laptops would be returned, Mr McMorran would mark them as ‘damaged’ or ‘unusable’, remove them from the premises and then put them up for sale on DoneDeal.
Det Garda Moriarty said that some of the offences took place during Covid-19 and there was a big demand for laptops as people were working from home.
He said the estimated cost of laptops stolen by Mr McMorran is €84,000 though “it is unknown as we don’t know how many were new and how many were old”.
Det Moriarty agreed with counsel for Mr McMorran, Patrick Whyms BL (instructed by solicitor, Daragh Hassett) that Gardai at interview stated that he was able to steal the laptops because of ‘very lax’ stock supervision by his employer.
Ms Comerford said that Jason Palmer, Head of Financial Crime at Pepper, first made a complaint to gardai in Rathfarnham, Dublin in March 2023 concerning the suspected theft.
This followed a stock take of laptops at Pepper's Shannon operation.
Mr McMorran was suspected of being the thief and he was first suspended and then fired by his employer.
Det Garda Moriarty said that Mr McMorran presented a spreadsheet to gardai showing that he had stolen 225 laptops.
However, Det Garda Moriarty said that these contained a large number of duplicates and the figure he had arrived at was 120.
Mr Whyms said that providing the list of stolen laptops to Gardai “would not be typical behaviour of a criminal mastermind”.
The Pepper Group was able to confirm 116 laptops as their own.
Det Garda Moriarty said that an internal audit by Pepper showed that there were 234 laptops unaccounted for but said that there is no evidence to suggest that Mr McMorran was involved in any thefts beyond the 117 counts on the indictment before the court.
Det Garda Moriarty said that the IT system was so poor at Pepper they were unable to say where the other laptops went.
Dt Garda Moriarty agreed with Mr Whyms that Mr McMorran was a very well liked colleague at Pepper and colleagues were upset at having to make statements as part of the Garda investigation.
Garda Moriarty agreed that Mr McMorran had no trappings of wealth and payments from his accounts showed evidence of his gambling addiction at the time.
Mr Whyms said that Mr McMorran is in recovery from his gambling addiction and has deleted all gambling apps off his phone. He told the court his client a native of Durban, South Africa and arrived in Ireland 24 years ago and lives in Cork.
The barrister added that Mr McMorran now works for a car park operator and made known his gambling addiction and legal issues during his job interview.
Mr Whyms said that Mr McMorran’s present employer describes him as “trust worthy and reliable”. A Probation Report states that Mr McMorran has taken full responsibility for his actions.
