Man leaped from car and took trolley from woman, 84

A man jumped out of a car and snatched an 84-year-old woman’s shopping trolley.

She had got a bus home from the shops and was about to enter her house when the theft occurred.

The accused Nicky O’Driscoll, aged 35, with an address at 3 Helvic, The Headlands, Wilton, Cork, yesterday pleaded guilty at Cork District Court to the theft offence.

Judge Con O’Leary imposed a nine-month prison sentence and said: “It was an exceptionally vulnerable victim, 84 years of age.”

Insp Eileen Foster said that the elderly woman got off the bus at Cathedral Rd with her canvas shopping trolley and walked home to Ballymacthomas St in Gurranabraher, on the northside of Cork City.

It happened shortly after 6pm. As she was opening her front door, a car pulled up and O’Driscoll jumped out of the front passenger seat.

He grabbed the trolley and left the scene in the car. The stolen property was not recovered from the theft which was committed on Feb 15.

Solicitor Emmet Boyle said: “Mr O’Driscoll accepts responsibility for the offence and has offered his plea of guilty in immediacy, not requiring anyone in advanced years to come to court to give evidence.”

Judge O’Leary asked the senior garda how the defendant was identified as the person responsible for the crime.

Insp Foster said he was captured on CCTV in the area and identified from that.

O’Driscoll, it emerged, had numerous previous convictions.