A former driving instructor who carried out 21 driver theory tests dishonestly in exchange for money has been sentenced to one year in prison.
The judge said the qualified HGV driver was “a perfect candidate” for the highly organised scheme, in which customers paid as much as €2,500 to have another person sit their tests, reports The Mirror.
Daniel Trifan (51), of Beechfield Meadows, Clonee, Dublin, appeared before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on Thursday after pleading guilty to conspiracy to unlawfully use a computer and conspiracy to gain or cause loss by deception by sitting the tests between June 9 and 14, November 2019.
Detective Garda Gary McCormack told the court that Trifan was one of six individuals who came to garda attention for providing the illegal service between 2018 and 2021, and that he earned about €150 per test and was not involved in organising the scheme, reports The Mirror.
He said that while five of the six individuals have now been jailed, the ringleader of the operation remains at large.
Det Gda McCormack explained that people lacking confidence in passing the theory tests would contact the group and pay between €1,000 and €2,500 for someone else to sit the test in their name, with 124 tests completed between 2018 and 2021 and Trifan sitting 21 between June and November 2019, reports The Mirror.
In every case, the person sitting the computer-based test at the centre used a fake Romanian identity card in the customer’s name, and once passed, a driver theory certificate would issue, allowing the paying customer to obtain a learner permit and begin driving.
The detective agreed with the defence that Mr Trifan gave a very comprehensive interview and confirmed many of the gardaí’s suspicions, reports The Mirror.
He said Trifan told them he had fallen on difficult times following the breakdown of a relationship and was unemployed when he was approached by a man from the same Romanian town, who offered him work.
Trifan told gardaí that when he tried to leave the arrangement he was threatened, and the defence submitted documentation from Pieta House outlining his low mood and suicidal thoughts at the time, reports The Mirror.
His barrister told the court that Trifan had come to Ireland in 1999, worked in construction, qualified as an HGV driver and had also been employed as a driving instructor.
Judge Orla Crowe said it was fundamental to road safety that drivers understood the rules of the road and that falsifying this knowledge was inherently serious, reports The Mirror.
“Clearly he was a HGV driver, so he was a perfect candidate,” she said, reports The Mirror.
She said it was an aggravating factor that, after being charged, he left the jurisdiction and had to be arrested in Cyprus on foot of a European Arrest Warrant, while in mitigation she took account of his mental health difficulties, reports The Mirror.
“He did go in 21 times and impersonated another person,” she said, reports The Mirror.
She imposed a 12-month sentence and backdated it to when he was extradited from Cyprus in September last, reports The Mirror.
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