A woman who stole charity boxes from businesses across Inishowen has been given a six-month prison sentence.

Liliana Tinichigui, a Romanian mother of four living in Buncrana, was told her act was “as low as it gets” by presiding Judge Desmand Zaidan.

He said: “This is serious – she has to pay the price. Stealing from very deprived people is as low as it gets.”

Buncrana District Court heard Tinichigui (28) of Mulberry Avenue lifted boxes from shop counters at Callaghan’s filling station and the post office in Burt and McLaughlin’s filling staion in Clonmany on three separate occasions between October and November 2006.

She hid the boxes – meant for Downs Syndrome, African Missionary and Palestinan charities – under her clothes while family members distracted the shopkeepers.

The total estimated cost was 240 euro, which Tinichigui has since paid back.

Her defence solicitor Ciarán MacLochlainn told the court his client was pregnant at the time and had stolen the boxes to provide for her family while they waited for their social-welfare request to come through.

But noting she had three previous convictions for theft-related offences, Judge Zaidan imposed a 12-month custodial sentence, suspending the last six months.

He said: “She may as well have robbed a bank of 100,000 as robbing starving people of money, because the bank could do without the money – these people can’t.”