Taxi driver jailed for €250,000 extortion

A man who extorted over €250,000 from a fish and chip shop owner in Dublin by threatening him with the Real IRA has been jailed for six years by the Special Criminal Court.

Presiding judge, Mr Justice Paul Butler, said: “It is abundantly clear that this activity was ordinary criminal racketeering and terrorising ordinary innocent people.”

David Dodrill, aged 31, a taxi driver, of Plunkett Avenue, Finglas, pleaded guilty last week to membership of an unlawful organisation within the State, namely the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Óglaigh na hÉireann, otherwise the IRA on July 13 last year.