A taxi-driver who removed part of a clamp and drove off with the rest of it still on his car has paid compensation for the damage.
Finbarr Onuke (34), Ravenswood Rise, Clonsilla, Dublin, was also fined €600 for breach of the peace arising out of a confrontation with a clamper over the incident at Clare Street on September 11th, 2002.
Dublin District Court heard last October how Mr Onuke had illegally parked his cab in a lay-by near the Dental Hospital where he was attending for a tooth extraction on the day.
He arrived back to find two clamps on his car and with the help of a passer-by, sympathetic because he had been clamped the previous week, they managed to remove one of the clamps and had the second partly off when the clampers pulled up in front of the taxi.
There was a brief altercation in which Mr Onuke shoved the clampers before removing the glasses belonging to one of them and placing them in his (Onuke's) pocket. He then got into his taxi and started driving away with one of the clamp hooks still attached. Another clamper van appeared and blocked his escape and by then the gardai were on the scene.
Mr Onuke, who pleaded guilty to assaulting the clamper, criminal damage and breach of the peace, had been having a bad day, his lawyer said. Apart from the pain of the tooth extraction, he was due to pick up his sons from school.
The operations manager of the clamping company, Control Plus, told the court that the damage to one of the clamps meant four had to be bought as replacements only came in sets of four. They were all scrapped if one was damaged at a total cost of €2,117 euro, Sean O'Riordan said.
Judge Gerard Haughton adjourned sentencing until today to allow Mr Onuke come up with compensation of €1,750 euro (the cost of a set of clamps less VAT).