Queer As Folk actor in court

Aidan Gillen, centre: Remanded on continuing bail

Queer as Folk actor Aidan Gillen has appeared in court charged with being drunk and abusive after refusing to pay a £5 taxi fare.

Mr Gillen, 34, real name Aidan Murphy, who played PR executive Stuart Alan Jones in the Channel 4 series, was also charged with refusing to give his name to police.

Dublin District Court heard the actor refused to pay a taxi driver a fare of eight euros and 12 cents (£5.21) on Dublin's Strandville Road on 11 July.

The court was told that Mr Gillen, from the Drumcondra district of north Dublin, then refused to tell police his name and was arrested.

The charge sheet added that he used threatening, abusive and insulting language or behaviour intending to provoke a breach of the peace.

It alleges he was violent and abusive at Dublin's Fitzgibbon Street Garda Station, and was drunk in public posing a possible danger to himself or others.

Judge Conal Gibbons remanded Mr Gillen on continuing bail to reappear at Dublin District Court on 12 September.