Man spends more than R100 000 on pizza – using a credit card he stole from his deceased neighbour

A young man appeared in court after stealing his dead neighbour’s card and not reporting her death for two years.

Robert Sharkey (24), who now lives in Bangor, Wales, was released on bail after he pleaded guilty to charges relating to the credit card of the deceased Marie Conlon (68). He stole the card from her home in August 2015, after she’d died.

For the past two years he didn’t notify anyone that she’d died, Metro.uk reports.

Marie’s body was found in the bedroom of her apartment in West Belfast, Ireland, in October 2017. She was last seen alive in January 2015.

Robert, who’d been her neighbour at the time she passed away, was arrested after the discovery of her body and charged with the prevention of lawful burial of a corpse.

The charges were read to Robert on Tuesday 11 September at the Belfast Crown Court.

The young man pleaded guilty to 10 out of the 11 charges brought against him.

The charges to which he pleaded guilty included breaking into his neighbour's house, taking tools, batteries and a coffee mug, stealing £50 (about R850) cash and a debit card, as well as six separate counts of fraud by false presentation.

Amongst other things, he used the credit card he stole to buy food worth £5 900 (about R100 300) from Domino’s Pizza from October 2015 to 2017.

Goods worth £3 279 (about R56 000) were bought from a supermarket from July 2016 to October 2017, MSM reports.

Robert also bought cellphone airtime, made payments to the Department of Financial Land and Property Service, and paid his electricity bill from September 2016 to September 2017.

Of the 11 charges he only plead not-guilty to one – stealing Miss Conlon’s debit card.

Sentencing is due to take place on 12 October.

The court will adjourn until 24 September for a further update on the outstanding charge, Belfast Live reports.

Sources: Belfast Life, MSM, Metro.uk, the Sun