A Dublin man caught cycling the wrong way down a city centre street with a stolen phone box under his jacket has been jailed for three years.
38-year-old Austin Byrne from Townsend Street admitted kicking the phone-box off the wall of an office building on Lombard Street in February 2015.
He was arrested after a garda spotted him trying to steer the bike while holding onto the phone box. It later emerged that the phone box had not been in use for several years and most of the coins in it were punts.
While out on bail Byrne was caught, along with another man, robbing an iPad, laptop and watch from a house on Haddington Road in Dublin 4.
Byrne, who has 58 previous convictions including 15 burglaries, admitted gaining access to the house through a building site at the back. He admitted taking the computers and a watch.
Judge Martin Nolan said Byrne was either "a very incompetent or very unlucky burglar" who was caught by gardaí immediately after both offences.
