{"id":208672,"date":"2025-11-30T22:22:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T22:22:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/208672\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T22:22:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T22:22:08","slug":"drink-driver-almost-crashed-into-garda-car-cork-court-told","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/208672\/","title":{"rendered":"Drink-driver almost crashed into Garda car, Cork court told"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"contextmenu internal_Body1st\">A Garda patrol car had to take evasive action to avoid colliding with a drink-driver that was driving towards it, a recent sitting of Macroom District Court was told.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Sergeant Trish O\u2019Sullivan said a Garda patrol car was in the Cooldaniel area near Macroom, Co Cork, on April 4, 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">At 6.20pm, another vehicle was spotted driving towards the patrol car in an erratic manner on the wrong side of the road.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The patrol car had to take evasive action to avoid an impact, and the suspect vehicle was pulled over a short time later.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The driver of the car \u2014 identified as Andrzei Sobala, aged 35, of The Apartments, Moneycusker, Macroom \u2014 got out of the vehicle but had to be assisted to stand up.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu caption\">Arrested<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Garda\u00ed formed the opinion Sobala who was slurring his words and unsteady on his feet, was intoxicated, and he was arrested on suspicion of drink-driving.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Sobala was taken to Macroom Garda Station where a breathalyser test recorded a breath alcohol level of 132mg per 100ml where the legal limit is 50mg. The court was told Sobala had eight previous convictions, including three for drink driving.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Defence solicitor Se\u00e1n Cahill said Sobala had alcohol issues but was on notice from his employer, who also provided his accommodation that he would lose his job and home if he drinks again.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">The court was told Sobala had been off alcohol for five weeks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">Judge Joanne Carroll said Sobala needed to address his alcohol issue and warned him if he drinks and drives again he will be going to prison.<\/p>\n<p class=\"contextmenu Body Body\">For drink-driving, Sobala was convicted and disqualified from driving for six years. He was also given a four-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months. An additional charge of careless driving was struck out.<\/p>\n<ul class=\"listbullet\">\n<li>This article is funded by the Courts Reporting Scheme<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Garda patrol car had to take evasive action to avoid colliding with a drink-driver that was driving&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[781,9,10,2013,27,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-208672","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-cork-news","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-cork-court","12":"tag-courts","13":"tag-eire","14":"tag-featured-news","15":"tag-featurednews","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-latest-news","20":"tag-latestnews","21":"tag-main-news","22":"tag-mainnews","23":"tag-news","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115640988151657714","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208672","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=208672"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/208672\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=208672"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=208672"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=208672"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}