A man who drove through a checkpoint set up specifically to apprehend him was disqualified from driving for three years this week (April 9 ).
“He’s lucky he’s not going to prison,” said Judge Seamus Hughes about Shane Coughlan (33 ), from Aughaboy, Ferbane, Co Offaly.
Coughlan had gone through the checkpoint, set up “in a well-lit area” of Shannonbridge, Co Offaly specifically to apprehend him, at 1.13am on December 1.
He was identified by the gardaí who followed him to Belmont where they found his car with “a warm engine and tyres” , but could not locate the defendant.
The following day he denied he was driving the car, and when pleading not guilty in court last month, said he would be providing a “number of alibi witnesses to say they were with him”.
However, he decided to plead guilty this week, a fact which did not impress the judge when he factored in the cost of the investigation, and the manpower of the two gardaí mandated to appear as witnesses.
“And he couldn’t even admit the following day he was driving? What was he doing at that hour? Dealing drugs or something?” asked the judge.
“No, judge he was dropping off a friend... He had a rush of blood to the head because he had no tax, and a number of bald tyres,” explained his solicitor, Mr Dara Hayden.
The judge pointed out that the minimum disqualification after pleading guilty to dangerous driving was two years, but that he was adding an extra year to this sanction on account of the time and resources Coughlan wasted with his persistence in pleading not guilty.
He also fined him a total of €450 on three of the other four associated charges from the night.
