Man sent to jail posed as airline pilot and built up bill at hotel

June 1966

AN Englishman who claimed that he was a B.O.A.C. pilot, and who challenged the Justice at Dundalk Dirstict Court in June, 1966 that he would not be sent to prison by the court because the hotel which he defrauded would never get their money back found that the Justice did not take the same view and sent the man to Mountjoy for six months.

The man, of no fixed abode, had run up a bill of £54 at the Roadhouse Hotel in Carrickarnon, and having pleaded guilty to the charge asked the Justice for an adjournment for a month in order that he could pay the hotel the amount outstanding.

“If you send me to prison the hotel will never get their money and the State will have to pay for my upkeep” the man pleaded with the Justice.

To which the Justice replied “you won’t find Mountjoy as comfortable as the Roadhouse Hotel”.

The man answered that he would be glad to go to prison as things had improved in Mountjoy.

The court had been told that the man booked into the hotel under the pretext that he was a B.O.A.C. pilot and when he was approached some time into his stay to pay a bill that by then had amounted to £35 he said that he would only worry about the bill when it had reached £135.

The man somehow got his bags out of the hotel some time later, and took a car that belonged to a lady with whom he had been friendly with in the hotel. He later phoned the hotel to tell the lady where her car was and was arrested some time later in Drogheda.

He said that he had no intention of defrauding the hotel of £54 for his food and accommodation.

The court was told that the man had a list of about 26 previous convictions dating back to 1936 when he was a juvenile and his latest conviction was in Dublin for which he had been sentenced to 12 months in prison. That sentence was under appeal when he turned up at the Roadhouse in Carrickarnon.

The previous convictions were in London, Herts., Dublin, Cork, Cavan and Mullingar and ranged from house breaking, larceny, assault, possession of firearms and false pretences.

When arrested in Drogheda he told the Gardai that the matter would not be brought to court as the hotel would not like the publicity.

To which the Justice commented “you got a bit of a buck there”.

Ravensdale United who won the Redeemer Trophy Indoor football event in the Redeemer Community Centre in June, 1986. From left, Rory Finnegan, Derek Murphy, Eddie, Sammy and Martin Finnegan and Philip Crilly. Below, Shamrock Rangers, who competed in the Re