A Co Donegal man who got somebody else to sit his theory driving test so he could obtain a provisional licence has received a suspended jail sentence.
Bobby Cirpaci appeared at a special sitting of Letterkenny District Court before Judge Ciaran Liddy.
The court heard the incident was part of an overall national Garda investigation.
Cirpaci (29) is charged with carrying out the offence on August 7th, 2019, at the National Driver Licence Service in Letterkenny.
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He is charged that he had possession of a fake driver theory test certificate with the intention of inducing another person to accept it as genuine.
Garda Insp Tony Byrne gave details of how the accused man presented at his local driving test centre with a certificate claiming he had sat and passed the theory test.
An investigation by gardaí later confirmed that the theory test had been undertaken by another person.
The court was told that a licence had been issued to Cirpaci, of Celtic Apartments, Pearse Road, Letterkenny, but later invalidated.
Solicitor for the accused, Patsy Gallagher, said the charge read “very seriously” but said that his client had never come to Garda attention and that Cirpaci has made a “stupid mistake” and was now paying for it.
He said his client was very apologetic and stressed that Cirpaci was the “client” in the scam and not the organiser.
Judge Liddy asked if the accused man had been driving since getting the provisional licence under fraudulent circumstances.
Garda Insp Byrne said he was not sure but that there was no evidence to suggest he was.
Judge Liddy said the reality was that the accused had deliberately undermined an agency of the State.
“He may well have been driving and not passed an appropriate test. He’s looking at a suspended sentence,” he said. “This was a deliberate plan to undermine one of our State agencies and that cannot be tolerated.”
Addressing the accused, he said: “There is no evidence you were driving but you may have been doing so and possibly endangering other road users.”
He sentenced Cirpaci to six months in prison but suspended the sentence for two years.
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