PICTURES: Launch of Limerick Christmas Policing Operation<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nCCTV footage of the incident, which was played in court, showed the parked car was pushed back approximately 10 metres, before it itself knocked down a tree. Mr Flaherty continued on for a short distance before crashing into the wall of a business premises.<\/p>\n
The parked Ford Focus also narrowly missed colliding with a pedestrian, who was walking on the footpath at the time of the incident.<\/p>\n
This pedestrian, a woman in her 30s, provided a statement investigating gardai. She described how she had got off a bus from Cork and was walking towards her home when the crash occurred.<\/p>\n
When asked about Mr Flaherty\u2019s speed, she said he \u201cnever took his foot off the pedal\u201d. She said that the tree which was knocked over by the Ford Focus nearly landed on top of her.<\/p>\n
She described the incident as \u201can upsetting experience\u201d, adding that she was bent over \u201calmost getting sick with shock\u201d in the aftermath.<\/p>\n
She said that Mr Flaherty was \u201cdriving like a lunatic\u201d and he \u201ccould\u2019ve killed her\u201d. She was \u201ccrying uncontrollably\u201d before being comforted by a number of passers by.<\/p>\n
A Brazilian couple, one of whom was the owner of the Ford Focus in question, were also at the scene. They were residents in the area and had been asleep at the time of the collision. They were awoken by a \u201cmassive bang\u201d before going outside to see the car had been \u201cwritten off\u201d.<\/p>\n
When Garda Hanrahan arrived at the scene, Mr Flaherty and three other young men got out of the car. When asked why he didn\u2019t originally stop at the request of garda\u00ed, Mr Flaherty said: \u201cI have six penalty points and have had a few drinks.\u201d<\/p>\n
He was subsequently arrested and taken to Henry Street garda station in Limerick, where a blood sample was taken. Mr Flaherty was found to have 220mg of alcohol for 100ml of urine – twice the legal limit of 100mg.<\/p>\n
The court heard that Mr Flaherty has no previous convictions and is not someone who has ever been on the garda radar.<\/p>\n
Although he is a native of Clonmel in County Tipperary, he was an apprentice electrician and studying in Limerick at the time of the incident. He admitted to garda\u00ed that he had panicked during the incident because he wanted to avoid being put off the road.<\/p>\n
Garda Hanrahan said that Mr Flaherty appeared scared but was \u201cabsolutely co-operative\u201d with garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n
Defence barrister Amy Nix, representing the accused, said that it was a \u201cfrightening experience for a man of his character\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said it was the first time her client had ever been in trouble and described it as an \u201canomaly\u201d. She told the court that Mr Flaherty was travelling up and down to Limerick for his studies at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
On the day of the incident, he went to college and decided to head out with some friends after.<\/p>\n
Garda Hanrahan described Mr Flaherty\u2019s family as \u201cgood, hard working people\u201d and added that he had spoken to the accused\u2019s mother on the phone on the night of the incident.<\/p>\n
The court heard that Mr Flaherty has now completed his studies and is working full-time as an electrician.<\/p>\n
In her mitigation plea, Ms Nix said that her client accepts what happened was \u201cvery grave offending\u201d which had \u201cendangered himself, his passengers and the public\u201d.<\/p>\n
However, she described Mr Flaherty as \u201ca man of good character\u201d who would have found the experience of being questioned by garda\u00ed \u201cintimidating and frightening\u201d.<\/p>\n
The accused\u2019s father is a farmer and he is the youngest of three children. Mr Flaherty also has a girlfriend who was present in court to support him.<\/p>\n
Ms Nix read aloud a letter from the accused\u2019s employer, which had been addressed to Judge Colin Daly.<\/p>\n
The employer said that he has found Mr Flaherty to be nothing but \u201creliable and trustworthy\u201d, as well as \u201cefficient and well-mannered\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said he was shocked when an \u201cembarrassed\u201d Mr Flaherty told him about the incident, which was \u201ctotally out of character\u201d.<\/p>\n
The court heard that the accused has undertaken a road safety course to ensure that he drives more safely in future.<\/p>\n
The supervisor of this course said the accused showed \u201chonesty, insight and accountability\u201d while completing the training.<\/p>\n
Ms Nix appealed to Judge Daly not to impose a custodial sentence, although she had admitted that the \u201cwriting was on the wall\u201d for her client when it comes to a disqualification.<\/p>\n
Judge Daly said that he had \u201ca lot to consider\u201d and adjourned the case for sentencing this Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A JUDGE has been urged not to jail a young motorist who \u201cdrove like a lunatic\u201d and crashed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":210936,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,83705,7587,15,16,5,7,8,109974],"class_list":{"0":"post-210935","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-ie","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-latest-news","17":"tag-latestnews","18":"tag-limerick-circuit-court","19":"tag-limerick-city","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories","25":"tag-william-street"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115648624446298082","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210935","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=210935"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210935\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}