Two years for criminal who attempted to sell stolen motorbike to gardaí
A known Dublin criminal who tried to sell a stolen motorbike to undercover gardaí has been jailed for two years.
Gardai set up a sting operation after Derek Hutch (aged 24) showed the motorbike, by chance, to its original owner two months after it had been stolen.
Mr Michael Heffernan met Hutch, of Chapel Farm Avenue, Lusk to view the bike but quickly suspected it was his own vehicle, though altered, and called gardaí.
Garda Trevor Duggan told Ms Marie Torrens BL, prosecuting, that his colleague secretly took the bike’s chassis number at an arranged viewing and later ran it through a vehicle registration database to confirm it was Mr Heffernan’s property.
Gda Duggan said Hutch tried to sell him and his colleague the bike for €4,200 when they went back on the pretence of making a purchase.
Hutch pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possessing the stolen Honda VTR on September 8, 2007. He had 24 previous convictions with 11 cases currently before the courts.
Gda Duggan told Ms Torrens he knew Hutch from his involvement in “serious organised crime".
Judge Delahunt ordered that the vehicle, which is still in garda custody, be returned to its owner.
