WORLDWIDE
This column is nothing if not entertain- ing and varied…! We’ll get the bad stuff out of the way first: the Dublin driver whose jail sentence was suspended…?!! And they don’t know if his licence is revoked, even after his long list of criminal offences. At
least the driver’s at Rome Airport was revoked after knocking his customer to the ground and breaking his nose. Tell you what: the video of the Japanese driver running over a man and then smashing into a wall was certainly dramatic – at least no one was injured. Well done to the Cork driver who won a pack- et on the TV Lottery programme – for the second time. And it’s great, the way the Pakistani cricketers treated their driver to a meal. Finally we have the Korean driver who returned $100,000 worth of cash and cheques to its owner. How could anybody just forget to remove that amount of money from a taxi…?! At least it wasn’t a finger, as happened in the Chinese taxi last month. Both were safely returned, thankfully…
The National Transport Authority (NTA) has confirmed that Lyons is still a licensed taxi driver. His details are still on an NTA app that cus- tomers can use to check drivers’ details. However, while the NTA holds records of who is licensed, Ireland’s National police Service is the licensing authority, and it is up to it to inform the NTA if a licence should be revoked.
CORK DRIVER WINS €33,000 ON WINNING STREAK ON HIS SECOND APPEARANCE
from Ireland
DUBLIN DRIVER ROBBED CUSTOMERS UP TO 24 TIMES BUT KEEPS LICENCE
A taxi driver who stole customers’ bank cards and withdrew cash from their accounts up to two dozen times is still able to work despite his crimes. The
Independent.ie reports that convict- ed thief Patrick Lyons 45, from Dublin, received two and a half years suspended after pleading guilty to withdrawing €550 from a woman’s bank account after keeping her card when she used it to pay her fare last December. Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard Lyons has previous convictions from between December 2017 and August 2018 for similar offences of withdrawing money from customers’ accounts using cards given to him to pay fares. Judge Karen O’Connor heard he had developed a drug addiction and came under pressure to pay a debt. Lyons brought €500 to compensate the woman and had already paid back €3,800 in relation to cases dealt with in the district court. In September last year, he appeared in the district court on up to 24 counts of taking bank cards and cash from alleged victims he had picked up. In 2013 he stole a customer’s iPhone when it was left in his taxi. Dur- ing that court case, it was heard that Lyons had previous convictions for offences including theft of petrol from a filling sta- tion and driving without insurance. In court in November, Judge O’Connor described the offence involv- ing the passenger’s bank card as “devious and unpleasant” and added: “He used his position as a taxi driver to steal from customers.” She accepted he is now drug-free and making good progress. Judge O’Connor suspended a two-and-a-half-year sentence in full on strict conditions after she said she had decided to give Lyons one last chance. “He has been remanded in custody by me to see the inside of the prison,” Judge O’Connor said, adding he would find himself back there if he reoffends.
Patrick Lyons from Australia
PAKISTAN CRICKETERS’ HEARTWARMING GESTURE TO INDIAN TAXI DRIVER
Three Pakistani cricketers, Naseem Shah, Shaheen Shah Afridi and Yasir Shah, won the hearts of Indian and Pakistani cricket fans for their heartwarming gesture to an Indian taxi driver during their tour of Australia. According to the Daily Times,Australian commentator Alison Mitchell narrated the entire incident during the commentary of the first test. Mitchell’s video of recounting the tale to co-commentator, former Australian cricketer Mitchell Johnson, and listeners, was post- ed by Australian Broadcaster Corporation on its Twitter account. Alison said that a taxi driver, who picked her up, said that he drove five Pakistani players from the hotel to an Indian restaurant for a
84 JANUARY 2020
Cork taxi driver Joe Flavin collected a tidy fare of €33,000 when he appeared on the National Lottery TV game show Win- ning Streak on Sat- urday November 30. The Starcabs employ- ee with over twenty years’ experience won €8,000 in cash and a Renault Zoe electric car worth €25,000, bringing his total haul to €33,000. According to CorkBeo, this was his second appearance on National Lottery TV after he won a cool €16,000 on Million Euro Challenge in January 2015. Joe - a proud family man - has been married to his wife Betty for 37 years and he told how he used his winnings last time for a Christmas of a lifetime when he took his wife to New York for Christmas, to visit their son Cillian, who lives in Westchester. Joe and Betty’s three other sons also live abroad with Kyle in Wis- consin; Cian, who lives in Birmingham, England and Liam Óg in Dunfermline, Scotland. Both the UK based lads flew home last Fri- day to cheer their dad on from the RTÉ audience, while the other two were watching on the RTE Player from across the Atlantic.
Joe collecting his winnings
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