Six years for getaway driver

A Cavanman who drove the getaway car, carrying two armed men, to rob a local post office has been jailed for seven and a half years with the final 18 months suspended.

Though not directly involved in terrorising shop assistant and Stradone Post Office worker Breege Fay on the morning of April 22, 2021, Judge John Aylmer still considered Dean Mannering (24) “fully involved” through his “joint enterprise” when sentencing him at Cavan Circuit Court last Thursday.

Mannering, of 21 Laragh Crescent, Cavan Town, helped source the Toyota Avensis used by the gang. He bought the car the week before and parked it near his home at John Paul Avenue in Cavan Town where he met the two others who he would not name “for fear of retaliation”.

Mannering then assisted in burning the getaway car on a rural back road at Lisnageer, a 15-minute drive north towards Cootehill, and even roped an unwitting relative into picking him and the others up.

He knew the roads, and the direction in which gardaí responding to the robbery from Cavan Town would come, having lived in the area previously.

In an attempt to establish an alibi, Mannering attended court in the aftermath of the robbery. His claim was true, but through canny detective work, gardaí were able to establish that the accused only appeared after the robbery had occurred shortly before 10am.

Further on in their investigation, gardaí later searched an Airbnb used by the defendant and his girlfriend located in the Mullahoran where they found currency notes that could be traced back to Stradone Post Office.

The quick-thinking Ms Fay, under severe duress from the robbers to hand over even more cash after they’d pointed a gun at her and forced her to empty the register, supplied the masked gang with a package of €20 notes, the serial numbers of which had been recorded.

At an earlier stage in the court proceedings it was said the defendant had been “doing well” in life up to a point in time when he started abusing drugs, “mostly cocaine with Xanax”.

It was suggested that Mannering’s involvement in the robbery was a way to “pay off the debt”.

In summing up the evidence provided, Judge Aylmer noted that the robbery had been “well planned and premeditated”.

Mannering’s role was that of being charged with “acquiring” a vehicle and driving two other men, not before the courts, to the site at Drumlaught, Stradone.

He acknowledged the appearance of two masked and armed men bursting through the front door of the shop and post office had “frightened the life” out of Ms Fay who, based on her victim impact statement, now fears work she has done for the past 30 years. “I’m afraid to stay in my own home. I only get a few hours sleep. I wake up trembling and my heart racing.”

“It was a life altering experience,” stated Judge Aylmer, noting that the maximum sentence available to the court life imprisonment.

Mannering’s offending, the judge said, figured in the “mid range” in terms of severity, warranting a headline sentence of 10 years before mitigating factors.

He accepted Mannering’s admissions, and that the defendant had kept quiet about the involvement of other parties out of “fear for himself and his family”.

He noted a letter written to the court outlining Mannering’s remorse, and that the defendant had no previous convictions involving “violence”.

Mannering, who was represented in court by Garnet Orange SC, instructed by Tom Fitzpatrick BL and solicitor Garrett Fortune, was working in the kitchen while behind bars and enjoyed an enhanced prisoner status.

At the time he said Mannering was a person struggling “significant addiction” issues, and this factor had clouded the defendant’s judgement, leaving him “vulnerable to being involved in such criminal enterprise”.

Regardless, addiction was “not an excuse”, and the judge sentenced Mannering to serve seven and a half years in prison.

To encourage the defendant’s continued rehabilitation and to “keep his head out of trouble”, Judge Aylmer suspended the final 18 months of the sentence on condition that Mannering enter a bond to keep the peace post-release.

During those 18 months Mannering must also abstain from all unprescribed drugs. He must remain under the supervision of the probation service and comply fully with all recommendations, including urinalysis as required.

Credit was given for time already served. Mannering first entered custody in relation to the charge on January 25, 2022.