{"id":400341,"date":"2026-04-15T20:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/400341\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T20:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:23:09","slug":"man-picked-up-visually-impaired-woman-from-taxi-rank-for-financial-gain-court-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/400341\/","title":{"rendered":"Man picked up visually impaired woman from taxi rank for financial gain, court hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man made an \u201cidiotic decision\u201d to pick up a visually impaired woman in his car who believed he was a taxi driver, a court has been told.<\/p>\n

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court<\/a> heard that the woman had been socialising with a friend. They went to a taxi rank in the early hours of May 8th, 2022, where they tried for some time to hail a taxi to bring the woman home.<\/p>\n

Nicolae Zgherea (30) stopped his car at the taxi rank and spoke to the woman\u2019s friend, who believed his response confirmed he was a legitimate taxi driver.<\/p>\n

The woman got into the car and realising there was no taxi licence or meter displayed, she asked Zgherea if he was a taxi driver.<\/p>\n

When he confirmed he was not, she asked him to pull over but he continued driving. She called 999 and put her phone on loudspeaker, with the emergency operator also asking Zgherea to pull over, which he did. The court was told the call lasted just under 2\u00bd minutes.<\/p>\n

Zgherea of Fox Park, Finnstown Abbey, Lucan, Co Dublin pleaded guilty to false imprisonment.<\/p>\n

Barrister David Perry, prosecuting, told the court the plea was accepted by the Director of Public Prosecutions<\/a> on the basis that Zgherea recklessly took actions that amounted to the false imprisonment of the woman.<\/p>\n

Defence counsel Karl Moran said his client made an \u201cidiotic decision\u201d to stop his car with the intention of picking up the woman and her friend for financial gain and had no right to do this.<\/p>\n

Moran said his client apologised unreservedly for his actions and accepted he had no lawful right to do what he did.<\/p>\n

Counsel noted this would have been a \u201cterrifying experience\u201d for the woman, who expressed its impact \u201cvery eloquently\u201d in her statement.<\/p>\n

The court was told the woman is visually impaired and described herself as almost completely blind when it is dark.<\/p>\n

In a victim impact statement read to the court by her brother, the woman outlined that what happened continued to have a significant effect on her.<\/p>\n

The woman said she must trust that strangers will not take advantage of her as she cannot always rely on the vision she has left to read a person\u2019s body language and their intentions.<\/p>\n

She said what happened that night had affected her trust in others, her independence and her confidence.<\/p>\n

She described enjoying a night out with a friend, the relief of getting a taxi, then her disbelief and panic when Zgherea told her he was not a legitimate taxi driver.<\/p>\n

She said her first thought was, \u201cI guess this is just my turn. This is what happens to people like me\u201d.<\/p>\n

She said she considered opening the door and jumping out of the moving car.<\/p>\n

The incident felt \u201clike it would never end\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n

The woman said she experiences flashbacks and questions daily why this happened. \u201cWas I targeted because of my gender, disability or both?\u201d<\/p>\n

She said while she never felt completely unsafe before this happened, she did have an underlying fear of being more vulnerable as a woman and as a visually impaired person.<\/p>\n

She said the lifelong consequences feel inherently unfair but she is slowly rebuilding her confidence, trust in others and independence. <\/p>\n

Judge Orla Crowe said this was a \u201cvery serious matter\u201d and noted the dignity of the woman\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n

Remanding Zgherea on continuing bail, she adjourned the case until June, and directed the Probation Service to carry out a risk assessment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man made an \u201cidiotic decision\u201d to pick up a visually impaired woman in his car who believed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":400342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51250,16186,615,61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-400341","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-criminal-courts","9":"tag-director-of-public-prosecutions","10":"tag-dublin","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400341","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=400341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/400341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/400342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=400341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=400341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=400341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}