A prostitute robbed her clients at syringe-point to fund her £1,000-a-week heroin addiction, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was told yesterday.
A six-year suspended sentence was imposed.
On three occasions Tina Kennedy used a syringe to menace her clients into handing over small sums of money.
On one occasion she followed a man to an ATM machine and forced him him to hand over £100.
Kennedy (26), of Killinarden Estate, Tallaght, Dublin, pleaded guilty to the robberies committed in Benburb Street in 1997.
She also admitted threatening a taxi-driver that she would infect him with HIV and smash his windscreen unless he gave her £20.
Garda Eamonn O'Hara told Mr Paul Coffey, defending, with Ms Mary Ellen Ring, that on March 3rd, 1997, Kennedy met a potential client in Benburb Street and he agreed to get money from an ATM machine.
She accompanied him, and when he was about to enter the correct sum, she threatened him with a needle and pressed the £100 button.
Garda Seamus Darcy said that on February 11th, 1997, Kennedy again used a needle to rob a client of £35.
No sexual conduct had taken place as the man had to return to work.
Judge Cyril Kelly said: "It is extraordinary that a man would spend his breaktime kerb-crawling for prostitutes rather than having a cup of coffee."
Garda Darcy said there was a severe problem with unreported robberies in Benburb Steet. Women passing by were also being approached by kerb-crawlers.
Defence counsel Mr Luigi Rea said his client was a former drug addict who had a severe blood clot in her leg.
Her mother had died when she was four years old, and her father was seriously ill with cancer.
Kennedy robbed her clients to feed a £1,000-a-week drug problem she had at that time, said Mr Rea.
Judge Kelly considered the attack on the taxi-driver the most serious of all.
Imposing the suspended sentence, he noted that while Kennedy had committed particularly nasty offences she came from an extremely dysfunctional family and was motivated by a serious drug problem.