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Joe Giltrap : Don’t be fooled by loveable rogue tag
I CAN’T remember who first coined the phrase crime does not pay —
and it doesn’t really matter very much but they were way off beam.
I watched Dublin gangster Gerry The Monk Hutch talking on RTÉ’s
Prime Time programme and you have to question the decision to screen this.
He freely admitted that he had carried out crimes and got away with some.
What sort of a message does that send out to aspiring criminals?
The story was about the CAB — Criminal Assets Bureau — that
targets the wealth accumulated as a result of crime.
They have been very successful in exposing the crime lords and it has
hit the gangsters where it really hurts them most — in their pockets.
Gerry Hutch now runs a limousine hire business and would have you believe
he is a reformed character. Perhaps he is but where did he get the cash
to set up his business?
He denies being the leader of the gang that stole over e3million from
a Brinks Allied depot in Dublin 12 years ago and bagged another large
haul from a security van 21 years ago.
Well, he is hardly going to admit it now, is he?
He says that he is a convicted criminal but not a convicted armed robber
or a convicted hitman or drug dealer.
I suppose that is all right then.
Hutch paid money to the CAB and claims it was over tax evasion and blames
his ignorance of the tax laws.
You can actually see the humour in this.
I wonder if he claimed expenses etc against his gains?
Can’t you just see him filling in his tax return?
Travel expenses whilst nicking a car, new balaclavas and gloves etc, etc.
Organised crime is a very serious problem in Ireland and putting gangsters
on television does nothing to discourage them.
It feeds their egos and elevates them in the eyes of their peers.
The media has played a part in this glorification by giving them colourful
nicknames which somehow tend to make them appear as characters.
Names like The Monk, The General and The Viper give them an identity and
a sense of importance.
I don’t care whether they are good to their mothers or not.
They are simply common criminals — nothing more and nothing less.
Lock them up and throw away the key.
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