Company financial officer blew a quarter million Euros on internet gambling

The Galway Circuit Court in Ireland was the scene of a hearing this week in which a 26-year-old financial officer at the Galway City Bin Company, Mark Hehir, was sentenced.

Last May, Hehir pleaded guilty to 10 sample charges from a total of 72 on the charge sheet detailing fraudulent transactions he made in siphoning cash from the company accounts to his own, admitting that he used the almost Euro 250,000 involved to make sports bets with a number of online bookmaking firms.

Judge Rory McCabe was told at the sentencing hearing that the accused is paying back Euro 100 a week to the waste company and that his father had repaid a further Euro 29,000.

He imposed 240 hours community service for the first charge and a two-year sentence for each of the remaining charges, to run concurrently. These were all suspended for five years on condition that Hehir remain of good behaviour and desist from gambling.

Judge McCabe said the case should serve as a “red light warning” to parents about the dangers posed by gambling addictions.