Man admits threatening female student in her car during daytime traffic
An alcoholic who forced a student out of her car and threatened to kill her if she did not hand over the keys has received a four-and-a-half-year sentence for this and a bookies robbery.
Robert Boyle (aged 44) stopped the car, which was moving slowly through daytime traffic, and sat in the driver’s seat as Ms Michelle Murray jumped out.
Garda Sean Waters revealed that Boyle began threatening Ms Murray when he realised she had taken the keys with her.
Boyle, of Fausagh Avenue, Cabra, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to interfering with a vehicle and threatening to kill Ms Murray outside Phibsboro Fire Station on November 30, 2009.
He also pleaded guilty to robbing €394 from a Cabra Ladbrokes using a cigarette lighter shaped like a gun on January 12, 2009.
He has 17 previous convictions for minor public order offences.
Judge Katherine Delahunt gave Boyle an 18-month sentence for the threats to kill and a consecutive three years for the robbery but suspended the final 15 months of his total sentence.
Gda Waters told Mr Garnet Orange BL, prosecuting, that firemen came out of the station and “secured” Boyle on the ground as Ms Murray backed away from her car.
The garda said Boyle was highly intoxicated at the time and could not recall the incident later.
Gda John Harrington told Mr Orange that Boyle pulled what looked like a gun in the bookies and demanded money around closing time on January 12, 2009.
Gda Harrington later encountered the suspected robber walking intoxicated on the New Cabra Road with gloves and a silver gun-shaped cigarette lighter in his pocket.
The garda agreed with Mr Philipp Rahn BL, defending, that his client had been in an “incoherent state” on arrest.
Mr Rahn submitted to Judge Delahunt that his client was a chronic alcoholic with severe health problems but wished to express his remorse to the victims in each case.
The judge backdated the sentence to December 2009 when Boyle entered into custody on all matters.
