LENIENCY MARKS COURTS' APPROACH TO DRINK DRIVING

The handbag-snatcher got six years; the drink-drive garda who killed a
pedestrian has his jail term rescinded. JIM CUSACK looks at other similar
cases in which gardai have fared remarkably well in court

The case of Garda Shankey-Smith, who escaped a jail sentence for
drink-driving and killing a pedestrian in Co Laois, is not the most lenient
involving a member of the Garda Siochana in recent times.

Last May Rathfarnham District Court imposed a three-year driving ban and a
IEP1,000 fine on a Dublin detective who knocked down and killed a cyclist
on the Naas dual carriageway on December 21st last year.

The officer knocked down and killed Mr Gerard O'Neill (35), a single man
who supported his elderly mother, then drove away leaving him on the hard
shoulder of the carriageway.

After striking Mr O'Neill, Garda Michael Martin drove on and abandoned the
unmarked Garda car he was driving illegally and went home, where he was
arrested the following day. He was charged only with failing to stay at the
scene of an accident. He was temporarily suspended from duty and has since
returned to work.

Similarly, Garda Shankey-Smith was charged, not with dangerous driving
causing death, but with driving with excess alcohol and failing to remain
at the scene of an accident.

But the apparent leniency in the cases involving the two gardai is not out
of the ordinary in that Irish courts, generally speaking, tend to treat
such cases leniently.

In July a Dundalk man escaped with a suspended three-year sentence and a
seven-year driving ban for killing a baby in a head-on crash. The man was
drunk and was overtaking on the wrong side of the road when he struck an
oncoming car, killing the baby.

In June Cork Circuit Criminal Court imposed a three-year sentence and
disqualification on a 21-year-old man for dangerous driving causing serious
bodily injury. The man was drunk when he hit a 30-year-old woman pharmacist
who had to have her leg amputated. This sentence, however, is due for
review on November 19th.

On March 12th, Clonmel Circuit Court imposed a three-year suspended
sentence, although combined with a 20-year driving ban, on a 26-year-old
Waterford man with a lengthy record of speeding and dangerous driving
offences, for killing a Kilkenny man and seriously injuring his pregnant wife.

The court heard that Stephen Power, from Kilmeadan, was driving at 60
m.p.h. on the wrong side of the road when he crossed a hump-backed bridge
and struck the oncoming car head-on.

He had five previous convictions for speeding and dangerous driving.

By contrast with Irish courts, courts in Britain and Northern Ireland have
been imposing heavy jail sentences for similar cases.

On April 2nd an Old Bailey judge imposed a 12-year jail sentence on a
33-year-old Londoner who caused the deaths of a young couple by ramming
their car off a road.

A Northumberland man was jailed for seven years on March 9th for killing
three pedestrians while driving when drunk.

In August the Garda Commissioner, Mr Pat Byrne, appealed for stronger
sanctions against dangerous and drunken drivers, suggesting that there
should be a total ban on alcohol consumption by drivers, saying there was a
need to emphasise the "criminal aspect of drinking and driving".

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski