Polish national gets four year sentence for kidnapping

A Polish national was jailed for four years today for a terrifying crime where he kidnapped a Cork woman and forced her to drive at knifepoint.

Judge Patrick J. Moran praised the victim’s bravery in managing to remove her seatbelt and escape from the car as her kidnapper sat in the front passenger seat with a sharp Kitchen Devil type knife pointed to her.

Pawel Folta, 28, with an address at 18 The Green, Dun Eala, Fermoy, County Cork, was jailed for four years for hijacking the car and holding the woman driver at knifepoint in Fermoy last December.

Detective Garda Eugene Farrell, who was praised for solving the case, said Fiona O’Farrell stopped at the Texaco station in Fermoy shortly before 7 a.m. last December 8. She was driving from Mitchelstown to work in Cork city.

She got petrol and returned to her car. As she was waiting to get back into a line of moving traffic on the main road, Folta opened the front passenger door and said, Cork.

She said she was not going to Cork but he got in, produced the knife and held it to her chest, demanding that she drive to Cork.

“She became rigid with fear and decided she would do whatever she had to do to appease the accused. She drove towards Cork. He lit a cigarette, turning on and off the radio. He kept saying, ‘Cork, Cork’.Eventually she managed to stall the car and jump out."

Two men in another car came to Ms O’Farrell’s assistance and followed the assailant who drove away in the green Toyota Yaris. They lost sight of the car which was subsequently found on the outskirts of Mallow golf course.

He was found at his address in Fermoy and ultimately arrested and charged. Ms O’Farrell was so traumatised by the events that she has changed her job so that she would not have to drive the same route in the mornings. She would not enter the courthouse yesterday as she did not want to be in the same building as the accused.

The judge accepted that Folta is now remorseful. He also noted that the accused has a wife and two children in Poland. He had been in Ireland for three months trying to make money to send home.

The judge said the most lenient sentence he could impose in all the circumstances was four years.

Folta pleaded guilty to three charges, namely that he exercised unlawful control over a car by threat of force by holding the point of a knife against the body of Fiona O’Farrell, and stealing her Nokia 3200 phone and handbag.