Rory Cowan has revealed that he was almost sent to jail in the early 90s.
The actor explained that he was nearly locked up for 15 days in Mountjoy prison after racking up 1,250 pounds worth of unpaid fines back in 1991 for parking ‘wherever he wanted’.
The former Mrs Brown’s Boys star said: “When I worked in EMI, I had this company car and being a young man I used to park the car wherever I wanted to park it and I’d end up getting parking fines because I never parked in a parking bay or car park.
“I parked it as close to wherever I was going to be and because I didn’t pay the fines, it ended up that there were more penalties put on top.
“So when I was made redundant from EMI, I had this outstanding bill for parking fines amounting to IR£1,250. This was in 1991 so it was an astronomical amount.
“I just said I wasn’t paying them, it didn’t dawn on me that you had to pay fines. I was a just naive idiot.”
Chatting on his YouTube channel he added: “One day there was a knock on the door and it was two policemen and they said, ‘Rory we have a warrant here to take you to Mountjoy prison for 15 days for non payment of fines’.
“So I thought, ‘oh my God, now this is serious’, so I rang my solicitor.
“My solicitor said ‘you to tell the policemen that you’re going to petition the Minister for Justice’. So I told them that and they said they would leave.
“My solicitor told me I have to write a letter to the Minister for Justice and plead poverty.
“So I wrote down everything and I sent the letter off. She wrote back to me saying that in light of my circumstances I would be able to pay 300 in six months then that would suffice.
“I looked at the letter thought it was wonderful, crumbled it up, threw it in the bin and thought no more about it.”
Six month’s later however, another knock on the door, and the same two policemen telling him that he had to pay the total fine or face 15 days in prison.
The policemen drove Rory to Mountjoy and the actor failed to realise how serious it was, thinking of it as a little adventure.
“I went in and was put into a little room and told I would be seeing the Governor… He had copies of the letter I sent to the Minister of Justice and her reply.
“He asked me if things were still bad. I couldn’t tell him that things were fine so I had to play along with it and tell him that things were worse, that the bank was taking back my house and the electricity was cut off and the gas was cut off.
“He said to me this is no place for you. Your sentence is done. You can go home. So I said, ‘what about the fines’, and he said, ‘no leave it they’re all paid’.”
“You wouldn’t get away with that now,” he laughed.
He added: “I didn’t spend any time in jail and all the fines were written off. However, since then every time I park my car in town now I always park in a car park.”
He certainly learned his lesson!
