Dine and dash: A couple admitted to running out on more than $1,400 in restaurant bills over 10 months
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- A UK couple confessed to multiple 'dine and dash' offenses, accruing over $1,400 in unpaid bills.
- Their spree took place over a span of 10 months, with five establishments targeted.
- 'Dine and dash' offenses are on the increase in the UK, a police official said.
A couple from the UK admitted to committing several "dine and dash" offenses, running up unpaid bills worth more than $1,400, according to multiple reports.
Bernard McDonagh, 41, and his 39-year-old wife Ann, of Port Talbot, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to failing to pay restaurant bills, the BBC reported.
Between August last year and April, the couple ran up vast bills at four restaurants, as well as a Chinese takeout.
At one Swansea restaurant, Bella Ciao, they ordered T-bone steaks and double portions of dessert, leaving the restaurant without paying the £329 check, about $410, the BBC reported.
In a Facebook post in April, Bella Ciao wrote that a female customer had had her card declined twice.
"She then said her son would wait inside while she went out to get her 'other card,'" the post continued. "Of course she does not return and then the son receives a phone call and says he has to go, and does a runner."
The restaurant added: "To do this to anyone is disgusting but to do this to a newly open restaurant is even worse!"
The Golden Fortune Chinese takeout in Port Talbot, lost the equivalent of $124 to the couple in January, per the BBC.
Shirley Xue of the Golden Fortune told Business Insider that it is already a "difficult time" to be running a business, with higher energy bills and suppliers' prices on the increase.
Another restaurant targeted by the McDonaghs, the River House in Swansea, wrote in a Facebook post in April that the pair, along with their three children, had run up a bill for £270, roughly $338, without paying.
Two other restaurants were hit, with bills of more than $240 on each occasion.
The McDonaghs' spree could point to a wider issue.
The cost-of-living crisis may be a factor fueling an increase in this type of crime, Donna Jones, a police commissioner in the UK, told MailOnline. She said the crime is "growing."
But she noted that the kind of people who dine and dash are often comfortable — and are rarely "typical thieves" with drug or alcohol problems, she said. "They're driving away in their own cars," she added.
In one incident in November, a group of "posh" elderly customers ordered the most expensive items on a menu without paying the resulting £96.70 tab, The Telegraph reported.
The McDonaghs have been released on bail and are due to be sentenced on May 29, according to the BBC.