Teenager jailed for three years for street robberies
Judge Con Murphy imposed that sentence on Philip O’Driscoll, aged 19, of 2 Barrack Lane, Macroom, Co Cork, at Cork Circuit Criminal Court.
Detective Garda Tom O’Sullivan who investigated the robberies, said the first of them was committed by O’Driscoll within ten days of his being released from St Patrick’s Institution in Dublin where he was serving another sentence.
Det Garda O’Sullivan said a 59-year-old man having a cigarette outside a pub in the West Cork town at around 10pm on January 31 was approached by O’Driscoll and another man who was not before the court. They asked him to purchase drink for them at an off-licence in the town and he agreed. They suggested taking a shortcut up Temperance Lane where they turned on the man and gave him what a witness estimated was twenty blows to the upper body. He was knocked to the ground and some bank cards were forcibly removed from his pants pocket.
The second incident occurred at 2am on February 13 at Chapel Hill, Macroom. O’Driscoll and two others pulled up hoods as they approached two women walking home. They grabbed one woman’s handbagand, in so doing, they knocked the 40-year-old to the ground.
O’Driscoll and the others ran away and divided up the contents at the back of the town’s mart and then threw the bag up on the roof of the mart where it was discovered the next morning.
