He was the reckless driver whose apparently unstoppable string of offences left Irish police baffled.
In the end, officers only needed a dictionary to crack the case of Prawo Jazdy.
The phrase proved to be the Polish term for “driving licence”, which officers had recorded as the name of the alleged serial offender on 50 separate tickets.
The embarrassing error emerged when police examined efforts to locate the driver who had long avoided prosecution.
Until that review, they had assumed Prawo Jazdy was a single individual who sidestepped the law by supplying a string of different addresses.
An internal memo explained officers had been using the words printed in the top right corner of the Polish licence as the holder’s name.
“Prawo Jazdy is actually Polish for \”driving licence\” and not the first and surname on the licence.”
“Having noticed this I decided to check on Pulse (the criminal data base) and see how many members have made this mistake.”
“It is quite embarrassing to see that the system has created Prawo Jazdy as a person with over 50 identities.”
“He can also be found on the Fixed Charge Processing System as well.”
“This mistake needs to be rectified immediately and a memo sent to the members concerned.”
“I also think that Garda Information Service Centre should be notified and some kind of alert put on these two words.”
About 200,000 Poles flocked to Ireland as its economy boomed.