A FORMER Gorey Post Office Manager will be spending Christmas in prison after he was sentenced to four years on six charges of falsifying An Post lodgement dockets as part of an “out of control” gambling spree.

Tony O’Reilly, (37), with an address at Hacketstown Road, Carlow, stole €1.75 million from Gorey Post Office over a 14-month period.

His behaviour was only discovered in June 2011 following an internal audit by An Post that discovered the financial irregularities at the Gorey branch.

Det. Garda Ian Hayes of Gorey Garda Station told a sitting of Wexford Circuit Court that O’Reilly’s theft began at the Post Office when he took a bag of coins from a larger bag and it was not checked.

The court heard that O’Reilly used pliers to remove €50 notes from the centre of €50,000 bundles.

O’Reilly developed a chronic gambling problem, but Patrick McCarthy, SC., said O’Reilly did not benefit personally from the money and lived in a modest house.

Full story in The Gorey Echo