Thief who once witnessed her boyfriend’s murder is jailed for breaking supermarket scanner

Yasmin Stephens (28) has been given a three-month sentence for damaging the device while she stole washing tablets in a south Dublin store.

The theft happened years after she had a murder charge against her dropped and was given a suspended sentence for the unconnected robbery.

Stephens, a mother-of-one of Chapelwood Green, Hollystown, Blanchardstown, pleaded guilty to theft and criminal damage. She also admitted a separate charge of threatening, abusive and insulting behaviour.

Dublin District Court heard that at Tesco, Lower Baggot Street, on August 1, 2020, Stephens took €16 worth of washing tablets and also caused €300 of damage to a scanner.

On May 19 this year, she had to be arrested for a row with “an individual” in the north city centre, a garda said.

At the time, she had “slipped” and relapsed into heroin, her barrister Donal Pattison said.

She was already in custody on other charges and Judge Bryan Smyth backdated the three-month sentence to May.

On October 26, 2014, Stephens’ boyfriend Kieran Farrelly (33) was shot dead by Sean Ducque in Dublin’s north inner city.

Stephens had initially been charged with the murder, which she denied, but prosecutors dropped that charge, while Ducque was tried and jailed for the killing.

Both Stephens and Ducque were convicted of robbing a homeless man on a nearby street in the early hours of the following morning.

Stephens was given a four-year suspended sentence in 2018 for the robbery.

At the time, the Central Criminal Court heard she “kept company” with Ducque after seeing him kill her boyfriend. Ducque beat a homeless man, while Stephens rifled through his pockets and bags and threatened him.