A solicitor singled out, for special praise, a young woman from the Roma community for her intelligence, but a judge remarked the lawyer could have a class action for defamation on his hands.

A district court judge said it was unacceptable for a man to beg for money on the streets of Cork to buy food for his dog. She fined him €150 for begging and €200 for having no licence for the dog.

A young Roma man begging on the street with a puppy was jailed for 21 days yesterday as the sentencing judge said the accused had no regard for Irish laws.

A shoplifter who had a compartment in her apron for concealing stolen goods assaulted a shopkeeper during a theft, but yesterday she only pleaded guilty to the crimes so that she could get out of jail.

A Co Sligo woman who stole a hat and gloves on a visit to Cork claimed that she goes a bit crazy once a month and did not know what she is doing.

A Roma woman with no income has been caught in a Catch-22 where she is now begging to pay €1,000 in fines imposed on her for begging.

A taskforce set up three weeks ago to target begging and street crime in Cork City centre led to 15 people appearing in court yesterday.

A Roma mother hoping to avoid a three-month jail sentence for stealing a religious medal and cash from an elderly churchgoer was so sorry and had such a lack of animosity towards the gardaí that she named her triplets after three gardaí in Cork.

Gardaí brought a man before Cork District Court yesterday on a charge of having thousands of images of child pornography at a house in Cork more than four years ago.

A “predatory” crime by two young women saw them calling to the home of an 83-year-old man and stealing cash while on the pretext of looking for water for a child’s bottle.

The parents of an infant girl with “head-to-toe” skin infection were both convicted and fined yesterday for willful neglect of the child.

The parents of an infant girl with “top-to-toe” skin infection were prosecuted yesterday for wilful neglect of the child.

“TRUE love gone wrong” was how a District Court judge described the case of a middle-aged man who sent numerous abusive texts to his ex-girlfriend over a nine-month period.

A CORK city shop owner alleged yesterday she was being harassed at her premises by a Romanian woman who appeared in court on a charge of shoplifting.

A MAN who used to smoke 20 joints of cannabis a day and admitted having images of girls aged between 13 and 17 involved in sexual acts, was told to undertake a rehabilitation programme at the Granada Institute in Dublin.

A DISTRICT Court judge wants to know why the parents of two 16-year-old girls left them penniless on the streets with instructions to “gang up on old people” to get money.