A 22-year-old intoxicated man who led gardaí on a high speed chase throughout the Belmullet area, for a distance of seven to eight miles, was this week disqualified from driving for three years.
At Belmullet District Court on Wednesday, Inspector Joe McKenna said that on August 9 2009 at 3.48am gardaí observed a Toyota saloon type car emerge from a parking space on the left hand side of Quay Street with no lights on. The car continued at speed and failed to indicate or stop at a junction.
Gardaí activated the blue lights and siren, however the car driven by John Ginty, Inver, Barnatra, Ballina, failed to stop and continued on Shore Road.
The car, according to Inspector McKenna, reached speeds of 160km to 170km on a road which is governed by a 100km/hr speed limit.
The defendant was subsequently arrested for drink driving and a breath sample provided showed 41mg of alcohol per 100ml of breath.
Samantha Geraghty, solicitor for the defendant, said that Ginty panicked on the night in question as he had four or five bottles of beer and therefore drove away from gardaí.
The defendant, who is a scaffolder on the Bellanaboy Shell site, has no previous convictions.
Judge Seamus Hughes said that it was “an appalling episode of dangerous driving” in which Ginty “tried to evade the gardaí, doing extremely excessive speeds on quiet country roads late at night”, and Judge Hughes said to the defendant that he was “extremely lucky not to have been involved in an accident”.
For the drink driving charge Judge Hughes convicted and fined Ginty €500 and disqualified him from driving for one year. For dangerous driving the defendant was convicted and fined €500 and disqualified for three years concurrent.
