Teen tried to board flight to US using passport of friend 'he looked a bit like', court hears

Gordon Deegan

A "naive" Cork teenager tried to get through border controls at Shannon Airport to board a US-bound flight using a friend’s passport who "he looked a bit like”, a court has heard.

At Ennis District Court, Judge Alec Gabbett imposed 80 hours community service in lieu of four months in prison on Aaron O’Brien (19), of Innishannon Road, Fair Hill, Cork.

This was after O'Brien pleaded guilty to having in his possession an Irish passport in the name of Jordan White, which he knew to be a false instrument on November 5th at Shannon Airport with the intention to inducing another person to believe that it was genuine, contrary to Section 29 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001.

The judge said O’Brien was not a candidate for custody "notwithstanding the seriousness of the offence."

Solicitor for O’Brien, John Casey, told the court that the incident was not like "the Hutches or the Kinahans going in and out of Iraq and Iran".

Mr Casey said O’Brien “did not have a hope in hell” in getting past US border controls at Shannon with his friend’s passport.

Judge Gabbett said O’Brien was fortunate that there is a US border control at Shannon Airport and was not allowed to get on the departing flight as he could have faced a few nights in custody at JFK or Logan airport if the US border controls were based on the other side.

Mr Casey explained that O’Brien’s wife was on holidays with her family in the US and was pregnant and fell sick.

Mr Casey said that O’Brien got a short-term visa to go to America and he went to Dublin Airport and when he got there for whatever reason, as he has no previous convictions, he was told that he was not travelling.

Mr Casey said O’Brien went back to Cork and got his friend’s passport, then travelled to Shannon Airport where he was stopped by staff.

Gardaí got involved when O’Brien tried to get through US border controls, Mr Casey told the court.

On his friend’s passport, Mr Casey said O’Brien "looked a bit like him alright".

Mr Casey said O’Brien never thought it out and he just wanted to be with his wife – she is heavily pregnant now and did get back home.

Mr Casey said it would have been O’Brien’s first trip to the US.

Judge Gabbett said O’Brien was obviously naive in trying this "as anyone who has been through US immigration knows that your face is scanned, your hand is scanned and fingerprints are taken".

"I get why he did it because of his wife falling ill and his own passport not going to work," the judge said.

Judge Gabbett said he had to convict O’Brien of the offence as the Irish passport is sacrosanct and allows travel to 120 countries without a visa.