Talk about life imitating art – Victoria Smurfit may have played a detective on ITV series Trial & Retribution, but she seems to have learned some skills from her role after tracking down criminals in real life.
The Irish actress has seriously earned our respect by taking matters into her own hands after her car was broken into. Victoria (41) was not going to allow the culprits to get away with it and decided to track them down like a real-life DCI Roisin Connor.
The star, best known for her role as Cruella De Vil in Once Upon a Time, was thieved while on a weekend trip to Oregon. She had gone on a hike with her children and left her bag tucked under a seat in the car, but arrived back to find the window had been smashed and her bag stolen.
Following this, the perpetrators allegedly cashed cheques belonging to her in their real names – a fatal mistake, as clever Victoria traced them on Facebook and devised a list of suspects.
A source close to the star revealed: “The thieves thought they’d gotten away with it, but the didn’t count on Victoria’s ability to do some detective work of her own.
“In the US, all cheques are pictured on online accounts so she started there. Victoria noticed that the thieves had written lots of cheques in small increments to themselves, using their actual names, and had also written an address on one.”
They added: “She used this information to go online and trace those involved through Facebook profiles. She tracked down phone numbers and further details and sent everything she could find to the police, who are now investigating.”
Meanwhile, Victoria has also revealed that she gave Jonathan Rhys Meyers a good beating on the set of Dracula. The Dalkey native admitted she “whacked him a good one” during filming and “intense” sex scenes.
The Dalkey native played Lady Jane Weatherby, an aristocratic, vampire slayer who is unknowingly seduced by Dracula, played by Rhys Meyers.
“It was quite hilarious, but it’s pretty brutal, I had bruises everywhere,” she said. “I did give him a good old belt around the shelf. I can’t be too delicate.”
