Double killer Stephen Penrose ordered woman (84) from parked car at Meath supermarket
The Drogheda IndependentDouble killer Stephen Penrose ordered an 84-year-old woman from a parked car before getting behind the wheel and driving away at speed, a sentence hearing has been told.
The defendant appeared via video link from Mountjoy Prison for a circuit court sentence hearing transferred to Dundalk.
He pleaded guilty to unalwful seizure of a Nissan Qashqai in Co. Meath in 2017, and was jailed for six years.
Mr Penrose (42) was found guilty by a jury of the murder of Philip Finnegan at Rahin Woods, Co. Kildare on August 10, 2016. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in December, 2021. That conviction is under appeal.
Among his 43 previous convictions, is one for manslaughter of David Sharkey who was stabbed in Navan on May 17, 2009. He was jailed for nine years in 2010.
The sentence hearing was told that at 3pm on May 14, 2017, an elderly lady was in the passenger seat of a car in the Eurospar carpark, Dunboyne, while her daughter, who owned the Qashqai, was in the shop.
A man got into the driver’s seat and shouted at her to get out. He pointed at her what she believed was a gun.
The woman, who has since passed away, got out. The defendant drove off at such speed that she thought her leg was going to get caught.
Her daughter’s phone and handbag were in the car along with €100 and a schoolbag.
Penrose was subsequently spotted by a witness at the gates of Dunboyne Castle Hotel. The Qashqai was recovered from the hotel grounds.
He was arrested the next day in Portarlington, Co. Laois, for a separate incident which occurred in Kilcock.
Gardaí found property which had been taken from the car.
The father of three children, of no fixed abode at the time, was questioned about the Dunboyne incident on September 1, 2017, and charged on February 26, 2019. He entered a guilty plea on the following July 12.
Judge Dara Hayes imposed a six-year sentence to begin immediately.
He said that the defendant is serving a sentence for a murder conviction and that nothing can be added to a life sentence.