I’ve heard my share of questionable excuses over the years. “My dog ate my homework.” “I did it, but I left it at home.” The classics. But nothing prepared me for the excuses grown men have offered Irish courts while facing prosecution for one kind of immigration related fraud or another.
Take Nigerian Sam Okwuoha. Facing removal from the State, he told gardaí they’d simply mixed him up with one of his nine identical brothers. Or Paul Onovughakpor, who pleaded guilty to using a false instrument after claiming a random taxi driver had handed him a passport and advised him to flee to Canada because Ireland wasn’t safe. You’d be forgiven for wondering how either man expected these stories to survive contact with a judge.