Police footage captured the moment a serial dine and dash couple were arrested after doing runners from over £1,000 worth of bills.
Bernard McDonagh, 41, and Ann McDonagh, 39, from Port Talbot have been jailed after racking up mega bills for food and drink before getting off without paying.
The pair had been ordering three-course meals for themselves and their family with some of the dishes even getting sent back uneaten.
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Back in April of this year, Italian restaurant Bella Ciao called out the couple on social media as they were left ‘devastated’ by them leaving without paying their £329 bill.
Photos and clips of them were shared along with the message ‘shame on you’ as they ordered the ‘most expensive things on the menu’. And after they were identified, the McDonaghs were arrested with it coming to light they were serial offenders who used over 40 aliases and 18 dates of birth between them.
Swansea Crown Court heard how the pair dishonestly obtained food and drink at four restaurants and one takeaway in the South Wales area, racking up a massive £1,168.10 in unpaid bills.
The couple plead guilty to five joint charges of fraud with Ann also admitting to four counts of shoplifting.
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Judge Paul Thomas sentenced her to 12 months in prison with Bernard getting eight as he told them their actions could have been motivated by ‘pure and utter greed’.
Police footage from their arrest show the couple complying with officers as they are taken out of their home in handcuffs.
“From the autumn of last year to spring of this year, you two set out on a deliberate course of sustained dishonesty,” the judge said.
“You would go to restaurants with your own family. You would have food and drink served to you to the value of hundreds of pounds and then you would cynically and brazenly leave without paying.
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“You would order the most expensive items on the menu such as steaks in the full knowledge that you had no intention whatsoever of paying for them.”
He added that he had ‘no doubt’ the pair ‘got a buzz out of what [they] were able to get away with’.
The court heard how Ann would often leave a child behind in the restaurants as she went ‘to get money from a cashpoint’ but they would then soon run out shortly after too.
“You were not going to these places to feed you and your family, it was criminality for criminality’s sake – to see if you could get away with it,” the judge said.
Jess Battison