Three men remanded in NCT forgery case involving corruption pleas

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Stephen Rooney, Alan Richardson and Vincent Brunton were remanded on continuing bail at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court pending sentence. Judge Gerard Griffin adjourned sentencing until the following Monday to consider the case and testimonials. The proceedings were reported on 22 February 2017.

Stephen Rooney pleaded guilty to forgery of an NCT certificate and corruption involving accepting or obtaining €100 as an inducement or reward for securing a certificate. Those charges concerned 20 April 2011. Alan Richardson pleaded guilty to the same forgery charge and corruption involving accepting a cash gift from Stephen Rooney as an inducement or reward for an NCT certificate. Vincent Brunton pleaded guilty to forgery by making a false NCT certificate. His offence was dated 20 April 2011.

The court heard that Stephen Rooney asked his neighbour Alan Richardson, an NCT inspector, to pass two Toyota Carinas that had failed testing. Alan Richardson then asked NCT tester Vincent Brunton to pass one vehicle. The report said the men were to receive €100 between them, although no money was ever exchanged.

The report described failed inspections in May 2011 followed by re-tests at which the cars passed despite their faults remaining unrepaired. Independent examinations subsequently still deemed them unroadworthy, and they were crushed later that month.

Detective Garda Sean O' Riordan accepted that the faults could be regarded as performance issues rather than significant safety issues. Judge Gerard Griffin was not entirely satisfied with that conclusion after reading the engineers’ reports. The detective said destruction of the cars prevented the State from establishing their level of danger, while maintaining that the State’s evidence was that the faults were not significant safety issues.

Alan Richardson and Vincent Brunton had no previous convictions; Stephen Rooney had minor convictions dating back to 2000. All three were accepted to have fully co-operated with the investigation and shown genuine remorse.

A fourth man, Darren Meehan, had pleaded guilty to producing a false NCT certificate. The report said he received a two-and-a-half-year suspended sentence the previous month.