Driver ‘could not remember’ crash in which woman died

THE driver of a vehicle which mounted a footpath, crushing a 24-year-old pedestrian, last night told an inquest he could not remember the crash.

Clodagh Doyle, from Leinster Park in Dublin’s Harold’s Cross and originally from Salthill in Galway, was struck and crushed against a wall on October 17, 2001 and died days later in hospital.

The driver of the Isuzu Trooper vehicle, Anthony Dean, told the court he had little memory of what happened around 12.10am when Ms Doyle was struck as she walked along the footpath on the lower Kimmage Road.

“I remember my vehicle being stopped and a woman lying on the road,” said Dean, who was jailed for 18 months for dangerous driving causing death.

“I have very little memory of what occurred,” he added. “I have no memory of driving up the road and of the circumstances of the collision.”

A statement from the only witness to the incident, Danielle Baliff, said she saw the jeep mount the pavement and crash into a light.

She said: “The jeep was not doing excessive speed but was travelling at speed.”

The witness said that when she went over to the scene she realised a pedestrian had been struck. “She told me she was hit against the wall and landed on her back,” she said.

Garda Frank Ferry told Dublin City Coroner’s Court that at the scene of the accident, the driver of the Isuzu Trooper, Dean, from Boyne Court, Harold’s Cross in Dublin, had admitted to drinking four cans earlier that evening but had slept since.

The investigating garda said there was a “strong smell of alcohol on his breath and he was slurring his words”.

“He admitted drinking four cans of beer earlier that evening, but said he had been asleep and had just gotten up,” Gard Ferry said.

However, the garda said a breathalyser test had shown Mr Dean was within the legal limit for alcohol consumed.

“It came back to show he was negative for alcohol; he was under the legal requirement,” he said.

Mr Dean said he remembered trying to phone an ambulance after the crash but found it hard as his fingers were trembling.

The driver was convicted by a Dublin Circuit Criminal Court jury last November of dangerous driving causing Ms Doyle’s death. He was jailed for 18 months and disqualified from driving for seven years.

Garda Ferry said Ms Doyle was found lying in front of the jeep between the pavement and the wall.

Ray Hurley, a fire brigade officer, said when officers arrived the jeep was on the pavement and had knocked down a light. Mr Hurley said they turned the wheel and removed the victim. “She told me she had a pain in her pelvis,” he said.

Brendan O’Brien, a driver with Dublin Bus, told the inquest he had met a jeep in the area around the time of the incident. “When I went around the bend the jeep was coming straight for me,” he said. “I flashed him a couple of times, the last minute he moved over to his own side.”

The court heard that Ms Doyle died in St James’s Hospital on October 20, 2001, several days after the collision.

Pathologist Dr Sunita Mane found that Ms Doyle had died from septicaemia as a consequence of pelvic and abdominal injuries consistent with the incident.