Beauty therapist admits damaging car after man ‘befriended’ her
Andreza Rocha, aged 36, of Cardinal Court, Wilton, Cork, a Brazilian with Irish citizenship, pleaded guilty yesterday at Cork District Court to a charge of causing damage to a car.
Inspector Bill Duane said Rocha used a key to scrape a car parked outside the house at Harbour Heights, Passage West, Co Cork.
The car belonged to a second man, who had left the house a short time earlier. Rocha was upset that he had left her alone with other man.
The background to the incident was that Rocha and another woman were socialising together in Cork City when they met two men. They decided to go back to the house belonging to one of the men in Passage West. However, Rocha’s friend decided en route that she wanted to be dropped home instead, as she had work the next day.
Insp Duane said the defendant and the two men drank for a while in the house and then one of the men rang for a taxi and left.
The man who lived at the house said he was going upstairs to bed. Rocha was going to sleep downstairs on the couch.
“He took off her shoes and tried to befriend her. She left the house with a bottle of whiskey, smashed it on the ground, and then keyed the car,” Insp Duane said.
Eddie Burke, solicitor, said: “She knew one of the guys. Advances were made, she did not respond to these advances. She did go out in a temper. She said she was extremely scared and over-reacted.”
Mr Burke said Rocha was a qualified beauty therapist who had completed a course in social studies. He said there was no prospect of compensation and that she had no previous convictions.
Judge Aeneas McCarthy said: “I will adjourn this for 12 months to see how she behaves.”
He added that if there was no further difficulty he would dismiss the criminal damage charge under the Probation of Offenders Act.
