Waterford woman behind €150,000 theft from vulnerable elderly woman has bail revoked over ‘inconsistencies’
Hanrahan had her bail revoked at Waterford Courthouse.
A Waterford woman has been taken into custody after having her bail revoked.
In February 2025, Joan Hanrahan, of 21 Woodview Close, Maypark Village, Waterford, pleaded guilty to multiple charges of theft and deception. She was remanded on bail pending her sentencing hearing.
On Wednesday, March 26, the 53-year old appeared in court over a bail reapplication order.
Detective Garda Stephen Burke gave evidence before State Prosecutor Conor O’Doherty and Judge Eugene O’Kelly. He told the court that Hanrahan had, in her role as a carer, stolen €150,000 from a vulnerable elderly woman from Waterford, diagnosed with dementia, between 2021 until 2024.
The deception was uncovered after the victim died in April 2024 and her family discovered multiple sums of thousands of euro taken out of her account under the tag "nursing home".
The family were concerned because the elderly woman had never stayed in a nursing home.
They alerted An Garda Síochána. Gardaí found CCTV footage of Hanrahan taking out thousands of euro from the women’s account in the days following her death. Hanrahan made full admissions to the Gardaí when arrested.
Det. Burke informed the court that in 2021 Hanrahan received a suspended sentence of 18 months from Kilkenny Circuit Court. Between 2016 and 2019, Hanrahan had stolen €29,900 from three elderly patients at a nursing home in Tipperary.
The court heard that Hanrahan was given a suspended sentence in mitigation of the fact that she paid €30,000 to the injured parties. However, that restitution is now understood to have been gained through theft. Judge O'Kelly expressed concern over this revelation and requested a DAR recording of the 2021 sentencing hearing. Her offending in Waterford has triggered a Section 99 re-entry of this earlier sentence.
At Waterford Circuit Court, Hanrahan claimed that she may have suffered a 'mini stroke', also known as a Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA) at an earlier bail hearing. Paramedics brought her to A&E and she was discharged several hours later with doctors 'satisfied' with her condition. She also claimed that she was in the care of a Tramore-based psychologist. A letter proclaiming to be from this doctor (with the name misspelled) was presented in court and claimed that Hanrahan was making 'progress'. Det. Burke, an officer with over a decade of experience in Waterford, told Judge O'Kelly that he could find no trace of the psychologist.
Taking to the witness box, Hanrahan told Judge O'Kelly that she was a single mother of three children, aged between 12 and 20, had separated from her husband and had no family to support the children. Det. Burke informed the Judge that Hanrahan's husband's vehicle had been seen outside the home multiple times over the past few weeks and as recently as Monday, March 24, directly contradicting her claim that her estranged husband had been "working in Valencia for the last three weeks". Judge O'Kelly ordered for the bail to be revoked, noting that the matter had been going on "for weeks".
