Donadea man got into wrong car and frightened woman, court hears

A misunderstanding over the identity of a car resulted in a man appearing in Naas District Court last Thursday, September 27.

Cornelius Murphy, 50, with an address listed as Donadea, was waiting for his girlfriend at a house at Wolfe Tone Street, Naas, on May 24, 2017.

He emerged from the house, while waiting for her, in his bare feet, and thought he saw her car. He approached that car and jumped into it.

It turned out that this car was not his girlfriend’s, and the woman in the car was not his girlfriend and, understandably, got a fright.

The court heard evidence that he started abusing her.

Gardai happened to be nearby and were alerted to the incident.

Mr Murphy was arrested and became upset at the turn of events, solicitor David Powderly told Judge Desmond Zaidan.

“Gardai put him in handcuffs; he thought he’d made a terrible mistake and he kicked off,” Mr Powderly said.

In court Mr Murphy was apologetic to the woman. As it happens, he had been issued with a fixed penalty fine for one of the offences, namely being intoxicated in a public place, which is Section 4 of the Public Order Act. He had paid that fine.

However, his appearance in court was to face a charge of Section 6 of the same act, which is ‘Engaging in Threatening, Abusive or Insulting Behaviour’.

Judge Zaidan felt that Mr Murphy was essentially facing two separate prosecutions for the same incident, and that having already paid a fine, it was potentially a case of double jeopardy.

Prosecuting sargent Brian Jacob agreed.

Judge Zaidan gave Mr Murphy the benefit of the Probation Act.