A young mother spent five weeks in a prison cell for trying to smuggle her boyfriend with a fake passport through Dublin Airport while he walked free to apply for international protection, a court heard.
Aleksandra Suchodolksda (24), from Poland but residing at Nursery Road, Leeds, England, received a two-month suspended sentence on Thursday.
“How the cookie crumbles,” remarked Judge John Hughes after hearing the facts. Suchodolksda brought her Albanian partner from Spain to connect with another flight to England. However, after Dublin Airport officials quizzed him about his documents, the man took out his real passport and applied for asylum in Ireland as Suchodolksda was arrested and refused bail.
The Polish mother of two pleaded guilty at Dublin District Court to an offence under the Criminal Justice (Smuggling of Persons) Act 2021 for assisting unlawful entry into the State.
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She had been in custody on remand since being arrested at Terminal 1 by the Garda National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) on November 27th last.
Judge Hughes noted that the DPP directed summary disposal of the case in the District Court rather than sending it to the Circuit Court, which has broader sentencing powers. After hearing an outline of the evidence, he accepted jurisdiction and her guilty plea.
Garda Yang Meng told the court the accused and an Albanian man arrived at Dublin Airport as passengers on a Ryanair flight from Barcelona.
They presented at passport patrol, and the accused showed her Polish passport. However, the man was questioned when he produced a fake Polish passport.
He subsequently produced his Albanian passport and then claimed asylum.
Garda Meng said they had met previously in England and had been in an on-off relationship; he returned to Albania in August, but they remained in contact.
The GNIB officer said the unnamed man went to Spain in November, “And he asked her to meet him in Barcelona and she believed that was her birthday present, you know, a surprise.”
Suchodolksda flew out on November 26th to meet him and booked flights to return a day later to the UK via a connecting flight at Dublin Airport.
The court heard that while she knew the name on his false passport was incorrect, she did not think he would apply for asylum.
The court heard he has since been processed for international protection but was never charged and remained at liberty. Meanwhile, Suchodolksda was refused bail because she was a flight risk.
Pleading for leniency, defence solicitor Tracy Horan said that her client would end up with a conviction and she was “extremely distraught” and had not been able to be with her children for Christmas.
Ms Horan said her client was in “awful turmoil”; she had assumed her boyfriend would fly with her, but instead, he applied for asylum in Dublin.
Judge Hughes said it was a serious offence but gave her credit for the guilty plea and noted the mitigation, her age and personal circumstances and that she had been incarcerated since the arrest.
Suchodolksda hugged her solicitor after the judge finalised her case and she was set free after signing a bond to be of good behaviour.
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