A Co Antrim man who stole £40 from a Dublin prostitute has been jailed for one year by Mrs Justice McGuinness at the Central Criminal Court. William Robinson (38), married with a family, of Killiney Avenue, Lisburn, was found guilty by a jury of robbing the woman on the banks of the Grand Canal at Herbert Place on June 4th, 1997.
The jury took almost 21/2 hours to return its unanimous verdict on May 19th after a four-day trial and also found him not guilty of committing two other serious offences on the same occasion.
Mrs Justice McGuinness said she adopted the suggestion made by Mr Paul McDermott SC, defending, that the scale of the robbery was such that it could have been dealt with in the district court where the maximum sentence was one year.
However, she did not want to suggest that robbing a woman who made her living as a prostitute was any less serious than robbing another person.
The wording of the legislation indicated how serious robbery was and it carried a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
"Indeed, it's well known that women who work as prostitutes are very vulnerable and have been murdered," she said.
Mrs Justice McGuinness said she had to accept "the reality" of the argument advanced by Mr McDermott that the victim had not suffered serious injury and no weapon was used.
While Robinson had "an extraordinary long" record of previous convictions, he had none for sexual offences, and the jury had acquitted him of a rape charge.
He had also shown a strong commitment to work and supporting his family since 1993. The judge noted also Mr McDermott's observation that his client was locked up for 23 hours a day in Mountjoy Prison and she hoped he could serve his sentence in some other jail.
She agreed her comment should be conveyed to the authorities.
Det Garda Declan O'Brien told prosecuting counsel, Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley SC, earlier that Robinson had 32 previous convictions in the North since 1975 for wounding, assault, robbery, burglary, theft, hijacking, handling stolen property, malicious damage and receiving property by deceit. Sentences from one day to three years were imposed for them.
The jury heard the victim relate that Robinson agreed to pay her £20 for "hand relief", but when she took him down steps to a towpath along the canal he knocked her on the ground, stole the money from her shoe and threw the shoe into the canal.
Gardai later recovered it.