A taxi driver was forced to call gardai after a young Mayo woman became abusive and refused to pay the fare. The ex-student then started “swiping” at gardai with her dancing shoes, the Galway District Court heard this week.
Retail worker Orla McAndrew (20 ) with an address in Renmore appeared before Judge Mary Fahy last Monday and pleaded guilty to the charge of obstructing gardai on August 23, 2008, at Glenn Na Ri, Dublin Road. A charge for failing to obey garda orders was withdrawn.
Inspector Mick Coppinger told the court that at 4.40am gardai received a call to go to the student accommodation, located near GMIT, where a taxi man had a passenger who was refusing to pay the fare. Gardai found the defendant to be “quite vocal”; she was shouting and abusive, added the inspector.
When gardai tried to arrest the defendant she tried to “strike” them “with a pair of sandals in her hand”. Inspector Coppinger explained that she was “swiping” at the gardai but that the shoes did not connect.
Defence solicitor Olivia Traynor said that her client had been a student during that time but is now in full-time employment. She said that McAndrew had been out with her boyfriend that night. When they arrived at their destination the boyfriend told the taxi driver that he needed to get money from the house. Ms Traynor said that the defendant, who had stayed behind in the taxi, wanted to get out to have a cigarette but found that the door was locked and started screaming to get out. She added that gardai said there was “no reasoning with her” but that this was compounded with alcohol and she rang to apologise the next day. She also said that the boyfriend had been trying to calm the situation down.
Inspector Coppinger then confirmed that the boyfriend appeared to be genuine in his efforts to pay the taxi driver and that he had been reasonable.
“Her reply [to the charge] was ‘I was dancing, you got that’... You’d want to watch your p’s and q’s. Obstructing a Garda is a serious offence, I don’t think young people understand the implications that a conviction could affect employment,” said Judge Fahy.
The defendant was remanded on continuing bail until April 6, 2009, for a Garda Behaviour Report.
