A 20 year old Dunmore man who knocked down an elderly man in Cloonfad and kept going only to crash into the back of another car 150 meters up the road was banned from driving for five years at Ballyhaunis District Court this week.
David Mullarkey, Cloonkeey, Dunmore, Co Galway, pleaded guilty in court to drink driving, dangerous driving, and to leaving the scene of an accident.
Sgt Killeen was told that gardai received a call to go to the scene of an accident in Cloonfad at 8.30pm on November 11 2008. When they arrived at the scene they found an elderly man being treated by two off duty nurses outside the church. He was told by an eye witness that a car had reversed out of a pub car park further up the road and drove at high speed down the road past the church where it hit the elderly man. The car kept going until it crashed into the back of another car 150 yards up the road. Sgt Killeen said he went across and spoke to the driver of the car and got a strong smell of alcohol from his breath. He arrested Mullarky and took him to Roscommon Garda Station, where he gave a breath sample which returned a reading of 84mlgs of alcohol per 100ml of breath. The court was also told that the man who was knocked down spent four weeks in hospital but has since recovered, and the occupants of the car Mullarkey crashed into were not seriously injured apart from one woman who suffered a whiplash-type injury.
The court was told that Mullarkey had visited both injured parties after the incident and was extremely regretful for his actions on the day. He had been at a football match and visited a number of pubs in the area, then he got a taxi back to Cloonfad with some others. He wanted to go home but the taxi was going only as far as Cloonfad and he stupidly took his car to go home. Handed into court were a number of testimonies from his former employer, secondary school vice principal, parish priest, and from his local soccer club in his favour.
Judge Conall Gibbons told the court that: “It was extraordinary driving, obviously fuelled by drink. But nobody forced him to get into the car. Thankfully both injured parities survived and are in good shape. Young people have to realise that if they drink they cannot get behind the wheel of a car. His actions, I do believe, were of a remorseful man.” For the drink driving offence, Judge Gibbons convicted and fined Mullarkey €1,000 and disqualified him from driving for five years. He convicted and fined him €500 for dangerous driving and disqualified him from driving for one year concurrent, and took the failing to remain at the scene of an accident into consideration.
