{"id":219266,"date":"2025-12-06T23:06:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T23:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/219266\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T23:06:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T23:06:10","slug":"highly-intoxicated-limerick-man-crashed-into-wall-while-banned-from-the-roads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/219266\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Highly intoxicated\u2019 Limerick man crashed into wall while banned from the roads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A \u201chighly intoxicated\u201d man who crashed into a wall while he was disqualified from driving refused to provide a blood sample to gardai following his arrest, a court has heard.<\/p>\n<p>Luke O\u2019Brien, aged 29, of Lisheen Park, Patrickswell pleaded guilty to a number of charges, under the Road Traffic Act, when he appeared before <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/section\/463\/crime-court\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Newcastle West Court<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Garda Inspector Gear\u00f3id Thompson told the court that on July 20, 2024, Mr O\u2019Brien was involved in a single car collision at Main Street, Pallaskenry.<\/p>\n<p>Emergency services attended the scene of the incident and Mr O&#8217;Brien was subsequently brought by ambulance to University Hospital Limerick.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst in the ambulance, garda\u00ed attempted but failed to obtain a breath sample from Mr O\u2019Brien, who was described as \u201chighly intoxicated\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The accused subsequently refused to give a blood sample to a doctor when he arrived at the hospital.<\/p>\n<p>Insp Thompson said that Mr O\u2019Brien was \u201cnot really understanding where he was\u201d and that \u201cthere was some sort of confusion\u201d &#8211; possibly because of his level of intoxication.<\/p>\n<p>The defendant has a number of previous convictions, including five for driving without insurance, and was disqualified at the time.<\/p>\n<p><strong>READ ALSO:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.limerickleader.ie\/news\/crime-and-courts\/1952172\/limerick-woman-engaged-in-harassment-campaign-against-garda-sergeant-following-collision.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Limerick woman engaged in harassment campaign against garda sergeant following collision<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Solicitor Andrew d&#8217;Arcy, representing the accused, submitted the State would have \u201chad some difficulty&#8221; had the matter been contested by his client.<\/p>\n<p>He said there were no witnesses who saw the crash and he described the case as \u201can unusual type of situation\u201d that was \u201cnot a straight forward road traffic matter\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The solicitor told the court that his client had suffered \u201ca serious unprovoked assault\u201d a number of years ago, which had a \u201cprofound impact\u201d on him.<\/p>\n<p>Mr O\u2019Brien, he said, suffered brain damage as a result of the assault and spent some time in hospital.<\/p>\n<p>Mr d&#8217;Arcy went on to say that his client had a \u201crelatively unblemished character\u201d before the assault but his life had \u201ctaken a bad twist\u201d since.<\/p>\n<p>The solicitor said this doesn\u2019t excuse his client&#8217;s \u201cbad record\u201d in recent years but \u201cit might explain it\u201d. Mr d&#8217;Arcy also told the court that Mr O&#8217;Brien is working in regeneration as a labourer whenever he is required.<\/p>\n<p>He said his client is \u201cnot a man who is sitting idly\u201d and that he tries to \u201cbusy himself\u201d whenever he can. Mr d&#8217;Arcy asked Judge Carol Ann Coolican not to impose a custodial sentence given those circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>He said that Mr O\u2019Brien has an underlying issue with alcohol and accepts that he needs help in dealing with that problem.<br \/>He concluded by saying that his client deserves credit in \u201cdeciding to fall on his sword\u201d by pleading guilty.<\/p>\n<p>Having considered the matter and noting the submissions, Judge Coolican adjourned the case until February 19, 2026 to facilitate the preparation of a probation report.<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n<p>ADVERTISEMENT &#8211; CONTINUE READING BELOW<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A \u201chighly intoxicated\u201d man who crashed into a wall while he was disqualified from driving refused to provide&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":219267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,7589,5,15806,41476,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-219266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","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-main-news","19":"tag-mainnews","20":"tag-newcastle-west","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-pallaskenry","23":"tag-patrickswell","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115675135145538497","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219266","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=219266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/219267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}