'Morning after' drunk driver was involved in serious crash
The defendant pleaded guilty at Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court.
A mother was involved in a serious car crash after consuming two bottles of wine the night before.
Siobhan Finn, aged 32, of Abbeyquarter, Ballyhaunis, appeared before a sitting of Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court where she pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing serious injury to one of her children.
Gda Karen Kilcullen told the court that at 11.40am on July 21, 2023, Gardaí were called to a road traffic accident outside Brickens. A VW Jetta had collided head-on with a tree.
Emergency services responded and Ms Finn’s children, who were aged five and eight at the time, had to be extracted from the car. The children were wearing seatbelts but were not in child-seats.
Ms Finn’s five-year-old daughter had to be taken to hospital in Galway by air ambulance and was later transferred to Temple Street Hospital in Dublin where she stayed for more than six weeks. The child has made a full recovery.
A witness reported that Ms Finn’s car was on the wrong side of the road as it came over the brow of the hill. She then lost control of the car and swerved into a ditch. A blood sample later revealed a reading of 106mg of alcohol in Ms Finn’s system. The legal limit is 50mg.
Ms Finn told Gardaí that she was travelling at around 90km per hour when she approached a bend. She felt the back of the car was sliding away from her. She regained control but as she entered a second bend, the car slid away again, and she lost control. Ms Finn saw an oncoming car in the distance and veered across the road in an effort to avoid it but struck a tree.
The court heard the car had a caliper defect that Ms Finn could not have been aware of and the road was wet.
The defendant told officers she had been drinking alone the night before the accident. She consumed two bottles of wine and stopped drinking at 3am.
The court was told she has no alcohol addiction issues but was binge drinking on this occasion.
“I know what I did was foolish and I will always live with the consequences of it,” she told officers.
She had been asked by a neighbour to drive to a shop that morning and agreed to do so. Ms Finn has no previous convictions.
Barrister Diarmuid Connolly said his client is “wracked with guilt” and the shame will never leave her. He said the incident occurred at a “quite notorious” area for accidents.
Judge Eoin Garavan said the case showed that someone can be almost twice the legal limit eight hours after stopping drinking.
The judge imposed a suspended jail term of three years and four months and disqualified Ms Finn from driving for eight years.
- Published as part of the Court Reporting Scheme.
