Defendant came to Ireland ‘for the sole purpose of robbery’ – Judge

Stole over €1,700 of items in shoplifting spree

A 41-YEAR-OLD man, who came from Lithuania and launched into a splurge of shoplifting that saw him steal over €1,700 worth of items to feed a drug habit, has been jailed for 12 months. Sentencing Imantas Butinavicius, Judge Raymond Finnegan said he wouldn’t tolerate people coming to the country “for the sole purpose of robbery”.

Butinavicius, with an address given at Tully, Monaghan Town, pleaded guilty at Monaghan District Court to carrying out a spate of separate thefts at stores in counties Monaghan and Louth over a five-week period between December 6 and January 10 gone by.

The stealing spree gave rise to 10 charges relating to goods valued at €1,737.41 in total, ranging from alcohol products to clothing and pharmaceutical items.

The incidents, which were recounted to the court by Sergeant Lisa McEntee, started on Saturday, December 6 with the theft of electric toothbrushes worth €20 at EuroGiant and a €15 T-shirt at Jack & Jones, both in Monaghan Shopping Centre.

The next stop on the defendant’s crusade was at Toolfix, Ecco Road, Árd Easmuinn, Dundalk, Co Louth, on Thursday, December 11, when he stole three jackets priced at €450 in total; while December 17 saw him visit Hickey’s Pharmacy at West Street, Drogheda and help himself to €191 of perfume products.

Butinavicius was back in Monaghan town on December 27, when he left Patsy Boyle’s Menswear (Boyle for Men) on The Diamond with a navy Bugatti jacket that still bore a €230 price tag.

For 2026, he started out where he left off, but concentrating more on off-licences with the theft of six bottles of Jameson whiskey coming to €180 at SuperValu, Main Street, Castleblayney on January 5, and then moving to Spar, Castletown Road, Dundalk, Co Louth on the same date to select two cakes worth €11 and leave without paying. The defendant continued in alcohol-related thefts on January 7 when he took six bottles of vodka amounting to €150 from Lidl at Avenue Road, Dundalk, before relieving that town’s Aldi store at Rampart Road from eight bottles of whiskey along with two dog toys on January 9, all of which would have rung up a €262.98 total had he gone to the till.

But his escapade came to an end at Lidl, North Road, Monaghan Town, where he was apprehended by gardaí after leaving the store with seven bottles of Jameson that should have cost him €227.43.

Sgt McEntee said those whiskey bottles were the only items actually recovered by any of the stores, as they were still in the defendant’s possession when arrested.

Butinavicius was represented by Roisin Courtney, solicitor, who said he had only been in this country for about a month, and had been staying with a friend after he flew over from Lithuania when he fell out with his partner.

She explained that he had been funding a drug addiction for over a year, and this was what all the thefts were about. But he had been most co-operative with the guards, was holding his hands up, and hoped to go back to Lithuania, Ms Courtney added.

Judge Finnegan said the defendant had managed to rob goods worth a considerable sum of money inside a short period of time.

Ms Courtney said her client had €600 to offer by way of compensation.

The judge said it was up to the defendant to decide on whether to hand that amount over, although he didn’t know how the sergeant was going to apportion it between the various injured parties.

But he also stressed that he wasn’t going to tolerate people coming into the country for what appeared to be the sole purpose of robbery. On that note he imposed a three-month prison sentence for the theft from Aldi in Dundalk, with consecutive three-month terms given for the incidents at Lidl, Monaghan and at Toolfix, Dundalk and Hickey’s in Drogheda.

This brought the total sentence to be served to 12 months, Judge Finnegan confirmed to Ms Courtney. All the other counts were taken into consideration.