{"id":179818,"date":"2025-12-07T19:39:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T19:39:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/179818\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T19:39:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T19:39:06","slug":"elderly-limerick-man-handed-prison-sentence-after-failing-to-pay-taxi-fare","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/179818\/","title":{"rendered":"Elderly Limerick man handed prison sentence after failing to pay taxi fare"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An ELDERLY \u00a0County Limerick man has been handed a prison sentence after he failed to pay a \u20ac125 taxi fare.<\/p>\n<p>John Roche, aged 71, of The Mall, Glin, pleaded guilty to the theft offence when he appeared before <a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/section\/463\/crime-court\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Newcastle West District Court<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Garda Inspector Gear\u00f3id Thompson told the court that on August 30, 2024, Mr Roche travelled by bus from Dublin to Arthurs Quay in Limerick city.<\/p>\n<p>Having arrived in Limerick, the accused then got a taxi from Arthurs Quay to his home village of Glin.<\/p>\n<p>Upon arrival there, he failed to pay the taxi fare, which, Insp Thompson said, totalled \u20ac125.<\/p>\n<p>READ ALSO:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/news\/crime-and-courts\/1959530\/clare-man-was-found-completely-out-of-his-mind-and-naked-high-on-magic-mushrooms-court-hears.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Clare man was found &#8216;completely out of his mind&#8217; and naked high on magic mushrooms, court hears<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Solicitor Michael O\u2019Donnell, representing the accused, told the court his client had given the taxi driver his phone as \u201cpart payment\u201d for the fare.<\/p>\n<p>Mr O\u2019Donnell highlighted his client\u2019s elderly status and his poor health over the past few months.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Roche, he added, has been in custody since October 13, after he was sentenced to four months\u2019 imprisonment for an unrelated criminal damage offence.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Roche has 65 previous convictions, including 29 for Section 4 theft offences.<\/p>\n<p>Judge Carol Anne Coolican imposed a one month prison sentence &#8211; to be served concurrently to the sentence Mr Roche is currently serving.<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An ELDERLY \u00a0County Limerick man has been handed a prison sentence after he failed to pay a \u20ac125&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179819,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5315,61,60,4580,43],"class_list":["post-179818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-glin","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-newcastle-west","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}