[size=14pt]Nurse stole over €30,000 in cheques from a dying cancer patient[/size]

A nurse who stole more than €30,000 in cheques from a dying patient she was caring for has escaped with a suspended sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Doreen Appleby (aged 59) worked as a night nurse with the Irish Cancer Society and was caring for Ms Bernadette Monaghan hours before she passed away.

Appleby of Carrickmore Gardens, Saggart, pleaded guilty to three counts of stealing cheques from Ms Monaghan and her husband Hugh at their house on Mount Anville Road, Goatstown between February 10 and 13, 2007.

Detective Sergeant Sean Hogan told prosecuting counsel, Mr Garret Baker BL, that Appleby was caring for the terminally ill woman and finished her shift two hours before she passed away.

Shortly beforehand Ms Monaghan had received a cheque from ACC Bank for €19,990.

Her daughter, who was handling all of her affairs, put the cheque in a pink Chanelle gift box which also contained Ms Monaghan's funeral arraignments.

When she passed away her daughter went to the box to retrieve her funeral requests and noticed the cheque was missing. After the funeral the family continued looking for the cheque and rang the bank when they could not find it.

ACC Bank assured them the cheque was "account payable" meaning only be paid into the late Ms Monaghan's account. They also put a block on the cheque to further prevent it from being cashed.

When the family rang the bank again several weeks later they were told there had been an error and the cheque had been paid into a post office account in Tallaght.

At the same time Mr Monaghan noticed something wrong in his bank account and it was discovered another cheque for €7,050 had been forged in his name and paid into the same post office account.

This account was traced back to Appleby who had opened it using an unwitting friend's passport.

Gardaí went to her house and arrested her. A search of the home revealed the friend's passport and another cheque that had been stolen from the house made out to pay €5,000 in the post office account.

Appleby was interviewed and made immediate admissions to gardaí.

"The cheque was looking at me the whole time while I was there and I couldn't resist the temptation," she said in interview. She claimed that at one stage she took the cheque and put it back because she thought she could not go through with it.

She admitted to taking another two blank cheques which she filled out later for the €7,010 and €5,000 amounts. She said she set up the post-office account using her friend's passport which she had after they went on holidays together.

She said she was "in a bad way with drink" and felt ashamed and remorseful. She told gardaí she was now a different person and trying to led a good and honest life.

Defence counsel, Mr Laurance Masterson BL, said his client had taken out a credit union loan and repaid the stolen money in full. He said she was the daughter of a prominent garda who was a strict disciplinarian and her constant efforts to please him led to her becoming a alcoholic.

He said she was an highly skilled and experienced nurse who had worked in pioneering heart surgery in Ireland and in treating HIV patients. Her husband of two years handed in a character reference which Judge Frank O'Donnell said he was "very moved by".

Judge O'Donnell called it a "total breach of trust" and said Appleby "had put her hand into the pocket of a dying lady".

However he also noted her lack of previous convictions and battle with alcohol and imposed a two-year sentence, suspended for five years.

"I hope you never have anything to do with this court again," he told her as she walked from the courtroom.

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