A drunk driver who had to be left in a cell for nearly two hours because there were no other gardai to attend a burglary call apart from the ones who had just arrested him, had the charge dismissed in the District Court this week (October 5 ) after this detention was deemed unlawful.
At a special sitting of the District Court in Athlone this week (October 5 ), Herve Pukuta Nkokani (24 ), an unemployed social science graduate with an address at Clibborne Way, Moate, pleaded not guilty to the charge.
Pukuta Nkokani had been stopped at Creggan on the Dublin Road at 4.20am on March 24 but only returned his failed intoxiliser reading of 40 microgrammes of alcohol per 100 millilitres of breath at 6.35am.
When Judge David Anderson asked about the delay, Garda Margaret Doyle told the court how a 999 call had just been rung in to report three men in balaclavas outside a petrol station in Tubberclair just as they entered the station and “there was no one else available”.
As Garda Doyle was the only intoxiliser operator available on that shift, the member-in-charge detained Pukuta Nkokani in a cell until Gda Doyle’s return.
“The defendant has a constitutional right to liberty unless detained within the limits of the law,” said defending solicitor, Mr Padraig Quinn.
Gardai acccepted they did not know how long the call to the reported burglary would take but argured the defendant was told why and “he had no problem with that”.
Noting almost two hours between “test and arrest”, Judge Anderson believed the detention to be “unjustifiable” and so dismissed the charge.
However, as Pukuta Nkokani was also pleading guilty to a second charge of driving without insurance on the day in question, he was fined €500 and disqualified from driving for a year.
