A man who showed a “frightening” disregard for drink driving laws was sentenced to five months in jail and disqualified for a total of eight years at Galway District Court last Monday.
Albinas Jokauskis (39 ) with an address at 36 Lissadyra, Tuam, was arrested on foot of a bench warrant last Sunday night and brought before Judge Mary Fahy the following morning to plead guilty to drink driving, his third in just a few weeks.
Inspector Ernie White told the court that on December 16, 2008, Jokauskis had been stopped at Western Distributor Road on suspicion of drink driving and later provided an alcohol reading of 118mgs per 100ml of breath, which is over three times the legal limit. He then failed to appear in court on January 7, 2009.
It soon became clear that Jokauskis was a repeat road traffic offender having been convicted of drink driving at Tuam District Court on February 24, 2009, and disqualified for three years. On the same date he was convicted of another incident of drink driving and two counts of driving without insurance. The total disqualification imposed was six years.
“This is an appalling history of driving with excess alcohol,” said Judge Fahy who then noted that the defendant’s “smiling” demeanour was the wrong attitude for someone up in court for his third drink driving offence.
Defence solicitor Olivia Traynor explained that her client, a Lithuanian national, was married with one teenaged child and was employed full time.
Judge Fahy said that the defendant’s attitude towards drink driving was “frightening”. For drink driving the defendant was convicted and sentenced to five months in jail and disqualified from driving for eight years. He received a two month concurrent sentence for failing to appear in court.
