Mother to take case to Garda Ombudsman

THE mother of a young man who died after being hit by a car driven by an off-duty garda said she intended to take the case to the Garda Ombudsman.

Christine O’Toole was speaking after the inquest into the death of her son, Derek, which heard that Garda Damien Carey had drunk three pints of stout and two bottles of beer on the night his car hit the deceased.

Derek O’Toole, 24, from Shancastle Drive, Clondalkin, west Dublin, had taken six pints of beer over the night and was lying on the Main Road in Lucan in the early hours of March 4 last when he was struck.

Garda Carey told the inquest he had consumed three pints of Guinness and just under two bottles of Corona lager earlier that night, but the court heard that when he was breathalysed the reading was 31mg of alcohol per 100ml of breath, under the legal limit of 35mg.

Ms O’Toole yesterday said there were a number of unanswered questions following the inquest.

She said these included why the garda was taken all the way to the city centre to Harcourt Terrace Garda Station, some 14km from the incident, to be breathalysed. She said she still did not know at what time he was breathalysed.

“I definitely think I would need go to the Garda Ombudsman, there’s a lot of issues and things not resolved, that I would like answered,” she told RTÉ News at One.

At the inquest, counsel for the family had asked Garda Carey why he was taken to Harcourt Terrace.

“We’ve no answer as to why that was the case,” said Ms O’Toole. “I suppose I also understood gardaí carried a breathalyser along with them and there was Lucan and Ballyfermot [garda stations]. That’s a bit confusing for me. They were much closer, if the accident happened in Lucan.”

She said she was “quite shocked” when Garda Carey said how much alcohol he had consumed.

Ms O’Toole said reports after the incident that her son “had been known” to gardaí were “very disturbing and unfair”.

A spokesman for the Garda Ombudsman Commission said they had not received a complaint from the O’Toole family yet, but would consider the case if a complaint was made.

The Commission is investigating four cases where off-duty gardaí have been involved in fatal road accidents. These have happened since the commission began operations last May.