Three year ban in drink driving case
A man was disqualified from driving for three years and fined €750 after he was found guilty of drink driving at a recent sitting of Mullingar District Court.Terence McLoughlin whose address was given as Cloughanstown Raharney was stopped by Gardaí at Main Street Delvin on March 15 2009 at 1am after Garda William Ryan observed that he was not wearing a seat belt.In his evidence Garda Ryan told the court that the car had smelled strongly of drink when Mr McLoughlin rolled down the driver's window at his request.Garda Ryan admitted in his evidence that he questioned the defendant about his drinking before he had formally cautioned him. When questioned Mr McLoughlin admitted that he had drank between eight and ten pints on the evening in question.Garda Ryan did then caution the defendant and told him that he would have to go to Mullingar station to provide a sample after the Breathalyser test performed at the scene proved positive.It was at this point that Garda Ryan and his colleague Garda Eamon Murphy noticed that there was another man lying on the back seat of the car.In his evidence Garda Ryan said that the man was so intoxicated that he could not speak and it took both Garda around 10 minutes to rouse him.Garda Ryan then said that he took the decision to take the man to his home address in Killucan.He told the court that he had called an ambulance would have taken 25 minutes to arrive and said that no Garda back up was available because of an incident that had happened in Mullingar on the same evening.Garda Ryan said that it took roughly 45 minutes to take the man to his home and then drive back to Mullingar. He gave evidence that he had arrived at the Mullingar Garda station with Mr McLoughlin at 2.40am.When he was presented at the station Mr McLoughlin informed Gardaí that he had asthma and it was decided that he would provide a blood sample from which a reading of 174 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood was recorded.In her defence Ms Patricia Cronin first of all noted that Garda Ryan had not cautioned her client before questioning him when he had initially stopped the car.She also noted the large period of time which elapsed between her client having been stopped arrested and taken to the station in Mullingar which she said had been 1 hour and 23 minutes. Ms Cronin also noted that Garda Ryan had been carrying the breathlyser in his pocket which she said could have affected the rest of the test carried out.Judge David Anderson said while the delay in procedure was "regrettable" that it was justified and had been explained by Garda Ryan before he convicted Mr McLoughlin and handed down the three-year disqualification.Ms Cronin said that while her client had accepted his wrong doing, that there were certain elements of the case that needed to be "teased out".