{"id":268904,"date":"2026-01-05T19:12:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T19:12:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/268904\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T19:12:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T19:12:07","slug":"teenager-drove-on-wrong-side-of-n7-dual-carriageway-and-hit-over-200km-h-court-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/268904\/","title":{"rendered":"Teenager drove on wrong side of N7 dual carriageway and hit over 200km\/h, court hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A teenage boy has avoided a custodial sentence after leading garda\u00ed on a very dangerous Dublin-to-Laois traffic pursuit where he reached speeds of more than  200km\/h and drove on the wrong side of dual carriageways.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The 17-year-old, who cannot be identified because he is a minor, faced charges of endangerment of life, car theft and 13 counts of dangerous driving on the evening of April 21st last when he drove \u201cback and forth\u201d across all four lanes of the M50.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The accused had faced a preliminary hearing at the Dublin <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/childrens-court\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/childrens-court\/\">Children\u2019s Court<\/a> to determine his trial venue. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Judge Paul Kelly held that the case was too severe for the Children\u2019s Court to accept jurisdiction and agreed with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/director-of-public-prosecutions\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/director-of-public-prosecutions\/\">Director of Public Prosecutions <\/a>that it must proceed to the Circuit Court, which has broader sentencing powers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He had remarked: \u201cIt\u2019s an absolute miracle no one was killed or seriously harmed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In October, the youth signed guilty pleas to endangerment of life and stealing the car, and Judge Kelly granted an order sending him forward to the higher court for sentencing in December.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Judge Kelly was informed that the accused received concurrent two-year and 18-month sentences, but they were suspended for two years, with the order to take effect later this month. The finalisation of the remaining dangerous driving charges in the Children\u2019s Court has been adjourned until February 3rd next.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Earlier, Garda Aaron Webb outlined the evidence and played video footage, mostly from squad car dashcams.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He stated that the 2012-registered Toyota Corolla was stolen within the previous 24 hours in Kilkenny and was detected in Dublin at about  7pm on Easter Monday at the Chapelizod bypass.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Footage showed it speeding at 127km\/h as it approached and passed the Criminal Courts of Justice on the wrong side of the road, and proceeded to Parkgate Street.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He turned onto the Luas tracks near the quays and drove past the Heuston Station stop platform and onto St John\u2019s Road West, where the car hit 137km\/h in a 50km\/h zone. It accelerated to 160km\/h on the N4 and then drove onto the M50, forcing another car onto the hard shoulder. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Between Junctions 7 and 9, the teen went back and forth across all four lanes of the motorway.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He also avoided interception attempts to box him in during the incident. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The court heard  he was travelling at 156km\/h, exceeding the 50km\/h limit, as he steered onto the N7 at Citywest and almost collided with two other cars. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Garda Webb said the boy, who had two teenage passengers, drove across four lanes and then collided with a van with a \u201cside swipe\u201d while doing 160km\/h at Rathcoole. The van driver suffered whiplash and needed to go to hospital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The boy continued driving the badly damaged Corolla and reached 203km\/h when the car had a blowout.  He kept driving, even with one tyre \u201cdisintegrated\u201d, and was clocked at 177km\/h. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The court heard that when he passed Kildare Village, he moved over onto the wrong side of the N7 and continued driving that way for 12 minutes, covering 21km, against the flow of traffic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Garda units were \u201cshadowing\u201d him at this time on the correct lanes. Near Junction 15 in Co Laois, garda\u00ed deployed a stinger device to deflate the stolen car\u2019s tyres. It continued moving at speed, with video footage capturing sparks coming from the vehicle, which then came to a halt. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A Garda armed support unit also joined the pursuit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"> The teenager had no prior convictions and claimed in court  he was pepper-sprayed after the car stopped and there was a \u201cstand-off\u201d with garda\u00ed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">His solicitor Brian Keenan said the teenager, who was accompanied to court by family, had suffered trauma in his childhood and had been affected by a bereavement at a young age, and had attended mental health services.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Mr Keenan said the boy realised he could have lost his own life and cost other people their lives  during the pursuit, and he was apologetic for that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The court also heard that, following his arrest, he made admissions and apologised for putting people\u2019s lives at risk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A teenage boy has avoided a custodial sentence after leading garda\u00ed on a very dangerous Dublin-to-Laois traffic pursuit&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":51392,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,34687,13959,18,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":{"0":"post-268904","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-childrens-court","11":"tag-director-of-public-prosecutions","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-ie","17":"tag-ireland","18":"tag-latest-news","19":"tag-latestnews","20":"tag-main-news","21":"tag-mainnews","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topstories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115844084124847459","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268904","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=268904"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268904\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268904"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}