A homeless man who was caught with several fake travel passes, including one in the name of Brad Pitt, has been given a suspended sentence and ordered to carry out work in the community.
Clive Keogh (40) was formerly a successful businessman and graphic designer who ran his own printing firm. However the father of one lost everything and ended up divorced and homeless when the recession hit and he took to drink, Paul Carroll, defending, said.
Keogh, of no fixed abode but with a former address at Brookhaven Drive, Blanchardstown, Dublin, was caught after a garda stopped to chat to him on Parnell Street on November 7th, 2013.
He pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to one count of possessing a false travel pass with the intention of inducing another to accept it as genuine.
Keogh also admitted possessing four other free travel passes on a USB key, in the names of Stephen Lyons, Anthony Keegan and David Doyle. The final travel pass was in the name was Brad Pitt with an address in Donnybrook.
Judge Catherine Murphy had adjourned the case after hearing evidence last July. She said on Tuesday that she was "very disappointed" to learn that Keogh had since come to Garda attention and was facing a shoplifting charge.
Judge Murphy accepted, however, that he “has come a long way since July” after hearing that he was now on a training course and had secured accommodation. She sentenced him to nine months in prison which she suspended in full on strict conditions including that he not come to garda attention in the next two years. She also ordered that he carry out 240 hours of community service and engage with the Probation Service for those two years.
Garda Donal Donoghue told John Byrne, prosecuting, at the July sentence hearing, that he became suspicious when he saw Keogh moving something plastic from his front trouser pocket to his rear pocket.
Garda Donoghue asked for a look and saw that Keogh had a free travel card in his own name that appeared to be fake. Keogh was arrested and handed over a small USB key to gardaí on which there were a number of other false travel passes, which he said he had created in an internet shop.
He told gardaí he made the travel pass in order to be able to visit his son who lived in Navan. He said he had made between five and 10 such cards for other people. Keogh has 18 previous minor convictions, including theft, intoxication in a public place, criminal damage, violent behaviour in a Garda station and drink-driving.
Garda Donoghue agreed with Mr Carroll that Keogh had co-operated fully with the Garda investigation. He said his client had spent time in Australia and that after he had come back with his wife in the early 2000s, he set up a successful printing business. However things went “pear-shaped” in the mid-2000s when business dipped. Keogh began drinking and underwent an acrimonious divorce from his wife. Alcohol abuse was the root of much of his marital difficulties, the court heard.