A STRANGER who walked up to a young man on the street and asked to borrow his iPhone to make a call before stealing it, has been jailed for four months.
Charlie Laffey (43), from Castlepark, Ballybane, Galway, pleaded guilty before Galway District Court yesterday to the theft of the young man’s iPhone and damaging his digital camera at Eyre Square, Galway at 3.45pm on May 30th last. He also pleaded guilty to being threatening and abusive to the man during the same incident.
Insp Mick O’Dwyer said Laffey asked the young man if he could use his phone and then refused to give it back.
The victim saw Laffey later on that afternoon and tried to take a photograph of him with a digital camera so that he could identify him for gardaí but Laffey spotted him and smashed the camera on the ground.
Judge Mary Fahy said this was an expensive phone costing between €400 an €500.
“This was a very low trick to play on someone, to ask to borrow their phone and then refuse to give it back,” the judge said.
She sentenced Laffey to four months in prison for the theft of the phone and imposed a consecutive one-month sentence on him for being abusive.