A former solicitor has been jailed for two years for stealing over €275,000 from a number of his clients over a four year period to fund a number of pubs that he was operating at the time.

Mark Cronin with an address at New Street, Macroom pleaded guilty to six counts of theft and two counts of forgery on various dates between July 1st 2009 and December 15th 2013.

Cronin (40) was sentenced to four years in jail with the final two years suspended when he appeared today before Judge Sean O Donnabhain at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.

Det Garda Tom O’Sullivan said the thefts started came to light in February 2012 when a couple made a complaint to gardai about Cronin who represented them in a house purchase.

They had handed over cheques for €30,000 and €40,000 as well as a bank draft for €100,000 to Cronin only to discover the money was never paid over to the vendor’s solicitor.

The couple contacted a solicitor working with Cronin in his practice, Claire Mungovan and she told them that she had already been in touch with the Law Society about him.

Det Garda O’Sullivan also told how another couple had handed over €25,000 — €17,000 in a bank draft and €8,000 in cash — to Cronin to pay the stamp duty on a house they were buying.

However they were contacted by the Revenue Commissioners who told them they had no record of any of the money ever being paid and that they owed Revenue over €24,000.

Cronin also stole over €79,000 from another couple when he altered and forged bank drafts relating to their purchase of a house while he also took over €2,000 from another client.

He was reported to the Law Society and the night before Law Society officers were due to carry out an audit of his practice in April 2010, his office burnt down, the court heard.

Det Garda O’Sullivan said Cronin made full admissions when he was arrested in relation to each of the thefts and said he had used the money to fund the running of several pubs.

“He said that the money went into a black hole — he was running a pub in Macroom and he later became involved in leasing two pubs in Cork city, ” said Det Garda O’Sullivan.

Cronin told gardai that he was using the money that he stole from his clients to pay wages, breweries and other bills arising from his operation of the three pubs, the court heard.

“The money was used to shore up the losses in the pubs .He would had a lot of temporary staff and he was very generous with his payments to them, ” said Det Garda O’Sullivan.

Det Garda O’Sullivan said that Cronin was much more comfortable running the pubs rather than working as a solicitor but his attempts to steal the money were bound to be found out.

He became so desperate at one stage he used to lock up his pub in Macroom and go drinking and then do the Lotto in the hope of winning millions to pay back the monies that he owed.

Det Garda O’Sullivan said that all four of Cronin’s clients had had their monies re-imbursed by the Law Society and none of them were out of pocket as a result of his fraud.

Defence counsel, Marjorie Farrelly SC pleaded for leniency and pointed out that Cronin had no previous convictions and a probation report found he was at a low risk of re-offending.

She also pointed out that he had pleaded guilty and by doing so, saved the state the cost and time of what could have been a very complex case with very technical evidence.

“He also wishes to apologise — he is conscious that he has left down his profession and its high standards, that he has let down his clients and that he has let down his parents.”

Judge O Donnabain accepted all of these as mitigating factors while he also accepted that Cornin had come from a very respectable and supportive family in Macroom.

“This is a very sad day for his parents — - they are very honourable people trying to do the best for their son and not a scintilla of blame attaches to them over all of this,” he said.

Judge O Donnabhain said that they were very serious offences and what was most serious about them was the fact that they went on for so long — up to four years.

He pointed out that Cronin’s victims had been re-imbursed but the cost was borne by the Irish people and Cronin himself did not have to pay for his crimes out of his own pocket.

“For him to deal with his clients as he did was nothing short of utrageous — there is no way he can avoid a prison term, his deception went on far too long,” said Judge O Donnabhain.

He said had Cronin contested the charges and lost, he would have jailed him for six years but because of his plea he was sentencing to four years in jail with the final two years suspended.