A Co Laois man was fined £500 (€578) today after he admitted trying to pay for sexual services.
In just the second case if it’s kind in Northern Ireland, Newry Magistrates Court heard that for 35-year-old John Bergin, media attention to his case “has been humiliating and degrading and a salutary lesson.”
Although Bergin, from Fassidinas New Row, Abbeyleix in Co. Laois, did not attend court personally, defence counsel Kevin O’Hare entered guilty pleas to two offences on his behalf - trying to pay for sexual services and possessing class A cocaine on 18 October last year.
A further charge of paying sexual services was not proceeded with and a prosecuting lawyer told the court how cops were alerted to report of “suspicious activity” on Monaghan Street in the city in the early hours of the morning when two women parked up in a white land rover.
A JUDGE was left shocked after a gym owner accused of breaching coronavirus regulations handed a birth certificate with what is believed to have been his bloody thumbprint on it into court.
District judge Eamon King told Newry Magistrates Court on Wednesday he had been given a number of items by Co Down man Declan Trainor, including a birth certificate with a thumbprint on it. it looks like a bloody fingerprint .
Judge King said the document, which came with a postage stamp and a red seal, read: I am settler Declan Trainor and do take control of the dominion Declan Trainor.
A Co Armagh man appeared in court yesterday accused of a violent attempt to hijack a woman s car.
As well as being charged with attempted hijacking at Newry Magistrates Court, James Dalton (29) was also charged with causing the driver actual bodily harm on Sunday.
Giving evidence to the court, a PSNI detective constable said he believed he could connect Dalton to the offences.
None of the facts were opened in court, but at the time of the incident on the Tullysaran Road in Armagh, police said the victim was left with a black eye.
The PSNI said at the time that a man had flagged down a car and asked the woman driver for directions. He then opened the door of the car and assaulted the driver but she was able to make off from the scene in her car, a blue Peugeot 307, having sustained facial injuries.
An infamous gangster facing charges of conspiracy to murder has complained about the effects on his mental health of Covid-19 isolation in prison.
Michael O Loughlin said that he has to go into isolation in prison after interviews with police who are investigating a slew of criminal charges against him.
The Galway man told a court hearing in Newry this week: My mental health suffers very badly in isolation. I ve been in there twice already.
O Loughlin is facing a litany of charges in the North after the UK s National Crime Agency used information from the hacked Encrochat network used by criminals to encrypt messages.
A Newry gym owner already facing accusations of breaching Covid regulations was on Wednesday charged with driving while disqualified.
In addition, 32-year-old Declan Trainor was charged with driving a silver Audi in the vicinity of the Belfast Road in Newry without insurance on December 8 this year.
Giving evidence to Newry Magistrates Court, a police officer said he believed he could connect Trainor to the charges.
Trainor did not attend court where a prosecuting lawyer said the case would proceed as per the charge sheet .
District Judge Eamon King adjourned the case for two weeks to January 13 for attitude .
In his other two cases - where Trainor faces three charges of breaching Covid regulations - he has represented himself.