HERE is fraudster Mary Higgins enjoying freedom just three weeks after she was caged for stealing €500,000.
Our exclusive image shows the former school bursar, 63, leaving the Dochas Prison in Dublin.
She walked free from the Mountjoy Female Prison on Thursday morning despite receiving a one-year sentence on June 19 for stealing the cash from Mount Sackville Secondary School in Dublin between 2012 and 2017.
Higgins — who stole the money to fund her gambling habit — has been let out on temporary release.
If she breaches the conditions of her release, which includes being arrested for a criminal offence, she will be sent back to prison.
It’s understood she was freed to address the jail’s overcrowding problem.
On the day that Higgins was released, there were 5,508 lags in custody in Ireland, where there is a bed capacity of 4,672.
Inmates who have committed non-violent offences and aren’t deemed a risk to the public are considered for temporary release.
A source told The Irish Sun: “Higgins was a model prisoner and was only in the jail for less than three weeks.
“She was delighted to get temporary release even though she got a year’s sentence.
“Higgins knows if she steps out of line she will be back in the Dochas.
“She got to meet people who wouldn’t have been part of her circle and her three weeks in prison was probably an eye-opener for her.”
Thieving Higgins is now back living in west Dublin.
Before stealing the €500,000, she controlled and lodged all the money coming into the fee-paying girls’ school.
Judge Orla Crowe described her crimes as an “egregious breach of trust”.
At her sentencing hearing, the court heard that Higgins had attended the Rutland Centre for her addiction.
PRAYING FOR ‘BIG WIN’
She still attends Gamblers Anonymous, where she had served as a secretary, giving her time voluntarily.
Higgins also engaged with counsellors for personal therapy.
The court also heard she had paid back €470,000 of the money she stole by selling her home and another apartment and signing over her pension.
Before being jailed, she was living with her 93-year-old mother and getting €260 a week in carer’s allowance.
Higgins previously told gardai she had hoped and prayed every day for “a big win” to pay the school back.
Detective Garda Brendan O’Hora told the court that her whole life had revolved around the school.
The detective said: “The hole just seemed to get bigger.
“I believe she showed true remorse. Notwithstanding what she’d done, she was a pleasure to deal with.”
