Taxi driver jailed for €250,000 extortion
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.
Chief Superintendent Diarmuid O’Sullivan told the court yesterday that over two years Dodrill forced the chip shop owner to hand over €164,000, and in addition he forced the man to pay him €2,000 a week from 2010 to 2011, making an additional €100,000.
Dodrill told the businessman in July last year that he would have to hand over the lease for his premises in Mulhuddart, but could buy it back two years later for €300,000. Dodrill also demanded €5,000 “compensation” because the businessman recorded conversations he had with Dodrill.
“The reason the injured party did not want to come to court is that he was fearful of Dodrill because he has been threatened continuously since July 2011 and he has been threatened to withdraw the statement he made to gardaí,” said Chief Supt O’Sullivan, who told the court that the guilty plea was “reluctantly” accepted.
He said gardaí investigated the activities of the Real IRA in extorting funds from business people. The injured party reluctantly made a statement to gardaí in July 2011 and was “in serious fear”.
After surveillance operation involving the Special Detective Unit, Crime and Security, the National Surveillance Unit, and the Emergency Response Unit, Dodrill was arrested.
In his statement, the injured party, who was not identified in court, said that he ran a number of fish and chip businesses in Dublin.
The businessman said that in Sept 2009 he was told to go to a pub on Dublin’s northside where he was approached by Dodrill who told him that they were taking over a loan of €30,000 that he owed. Dodrill told the businessman: “We are the IRA.”
“He said he was the Real IRA and he would come for me and my family in the night,” the businessman told gardaí.
At later meetings the businessman was told the entire debt with interest was now €164,000. The businessman handed over several cheques and drafts. He met Dodrill every Thursday night at a car park in Finglas and handed over €2,000, which he was told was €1,500 for the loan and €500 “for himself”.
After the final handover of €2,000 in July 2011, Dodrill was arrested as he left the rendezvous, driving his own taxi.
