A 45-year-old man who has spent more than half his life in prison has been jailed for a further 6½ years for hijacking a car while the owner was cleaning it.
Joseph Rafferty, who was identified from the port-wine birthmark on his face, threatened to kill the woman if she didn’t get out, causing her to jump out of the moving vehicle.
Rafferty, of no fixed abode in Tallaght, was before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court via video link from prison on Friday charged with several related offences at service stations in Dublin and Wicklow last year.
He pleaded guilty to telling the woman to get out of her car or he would kill her and unlawfully seizing it on April 26th, 2025 at Circle K in Walkinstown. He also pleaded guilty to stealing her Apple iPhone and dental veneers on that occasion. He further admitted to a robbery at the Applegreen in Rathnew on the same date, in which he took €800.
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He also pleaded guilty to attempted robbery at the Circle K in Bray on the same evening.
Judge Orla Crowe said this had been a “spate” of offences by a recidivist offender over a short period of time. She said it had been underpinned by a serious level of violence.
She said Rafferty had subjected the woman, who had been hoovering her car, to a brutal series of offences before she got out of the car, and noted her personal items had not been recovered.
Garda Daniel Tracey told the court that gardaí were called to the service station in Walkinstown shortly before 7 o’clock that evening. The complainant, who was shaken and visibly upset, told them that she had pulled in to the station to clean her car. She began vacuuming with the keys in the ignition.
She said that while she was in the back seat, a male got into the driver’s seat and told her multiple times to “get out of the car or I’ll f***ing kill you”. He was grinding his teeth, she said.
She said he drove forward and crashed, before reversing with her still inside. She jumped out while the car was moving. He then sped out of the forecourt, and she ran into the shop for help.
Her car was not recovered. Nor were her mobile phone or the €1,000 box of dental veneers, which were still inside.
Crowe imposed a 7½-year sentence for the hijacking with the other counts taken into consideration, with the final year suspended to incentivise rehabilitation.
