A MAN who drove through a garda checkpoint, but later surrendered himself, is to come up with €1,000 for the payment of fines at an upcoming sitting of Skibbereen District Court.
Sgt Paul Kelly said that shortly after 10pm on the night of February 3rd last, Killian O’Driscoll of Castleventry, Rosscarbery, drove through a checkpoint at Cork Rd and failed to stop. He also said Gda Karen O’Flynn had to ‘step out of the way.’
A description of the vehicle was circulated, but at 10.45pm, later that same night, the accused approached Gda Tim Forde whom he saw sitting in a car parked at Carrigfadda.
Colette McCarthy, solicitor, said her client was pleading guilty to driving without insurance at Cork Road and again at Carrigfadda; having no tax; and no silencer fitted.
She said Killian O’Driscoll’s sister bought the car and he agreed to do the NCT and had even arranged for it to be transported to the test centre by jeep and trailer.
However, the court was told that the vehicle not only didn’t pass the NCT test, it was deemed defective. Nevertheless, the accused made ‘the foolish decision’ to drive it home with two passengers in the car. A charge of using a defective vehicle was struck out by the prosecution because O’Driscoll was prosecuted as being the owner of the vehicle, and not the user.
According to Sgt Kelly, an inspector subsequently examined the vehicle and it was deemed to be ‘dangerous’.
In defence of her client, who is a 21-year-old mechanical fitter, Ms McCarthy pointed out that he has no previous convictions and that he had made a gracious apology to Gda O’Flynn, which was, equally graciously, accepted.
‘He admits himself that he did some awful, stupid stuff on the night,’ said Ms McCarthy. ‘But when he saw Gda Forde in the car park, he went up to him and told him what had happened.’
She asked the judge to consider dealing with the insurance offence as a single incident because a second conviction would carry a mandatory disqualification.
Judge McNulty said this was indeed ‘a series of unfortunate events’ but the court may treat him leniently on October 26th, provided he brings in €1,000 on the day to pay his fines.
