A court was told yesterday that an elderly Galway man goes every day to his local Garda station for company and sleeps under his bed every night, six years after he was tied up, beaten and robbed by a gang at his isolated farmhouse, a court was told yesterday.

Judge Raymond Groarke said the victim was a vulnerable man at the time he was robbed and, to add insult to injury, he had been “shopped” to known criminals by his own cousin.

In Galway Circuit Criminal court yesterday, 32 year old Darren Finnerty, of Ballinasloe with a rental address at Cummer, Tuam, was sentenced  to eight years in prison for his part in the robbery of the then 75-year-old widower at his home near Ballygar, Co Galway, on September 18th, 2006.

The judge said the victim now spends hours in the Garda station receiving sympathy from gardaí because he clearly feels insecure and is worried and vulnerable.

He noted there was an element of premeditation in this robbery and, for that reason, he said, he had to impose an eight-year sentence on the accused, with the final two years suspended.