A MAN WHO imprisoned a woman who thought he was a taxi driver and drove her 35 miles from her city-centre destination to Wicklow before she managed to escape, has been given a three-year sentence, with the final year suspended.
Cezer Croitoru (35), who arrived in Ireland in 2004 after being released from a prison sentence in his native Romania for an almost identical offence involving a firearm, claimed that the woman had given him wrong directions.
Croitoru, Upper Dorset Street, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to falsely imprisoning the Polish woman on August 27th, 2006, between Haddington Road, Dublin, and Rathnew, Co Wicklow. A count of assaulting the woman was taken into consideration. Judge Patricia Ryan said this was a serious offence which had a deep and lasting effect on the 23- year-old victim, who has since returned permanently to Poland.
The woman told gardaí she was trying to hail a taxi when Croitoru stopped in his car and asked her where she was going. She asked if he was a taxi and he told her he had just started working and did not have a plate yet. She asked him to take her to Mountjoy Square but became concerned when he did not take the route she expected. When she asked why he was going the wrong way and began screaming at him to let her out she found the door was locked.
She tried to phone a friend but Croitoru slapped the phone out of her hand.