Jail for Dublin teen whose van hit girl at pedestrian crossing

A man who drove a vehicle through a red light at a pedestrian crossing, flinging a girl into the air and breaking her leg, has been jailed for a year and banned from driving for four years.

Martin Joyce, aged 19, was previously convicted on June 29 of failing to remain at the scene of an accident, which took place on November 15, 2014.

A month after that accident, Joyce broke a red light after exiting the Darndale roundabout on Dublin’s Malahide Rd and hit the six-year-old pedestrian with his van.

Joyce, of Cromcastle Court, Kilmore, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to dangerous driving causing serious bodily harm to Jennifer Casey at Malahide Rd, Coolock, on December 17, 2014.

The child’s mother, Jennifer Squires, was taking Jennifer and her brother Thomas to church, where he was singing in a Christmas choir. The family had crossed one set of lights and were waiting on a traffic island for the next set to go green.

When the lights went green, Jennifer went on ahead. Ms Squires told gardaí later that she then saw the green van come at speed from the roundabout and hit her daughter. The child went up into the air and landed on the van’s bonnet.

The van then went over her. Ms Squires went over to her child and saw her eyes were closed and thought she was dead. Someone found the victim had a pulse and the Dublin Fire Brigade brought her to hospital.

The child’s femur was fractured and she suffered abdominal injuries. Garda Jacinta Naughton said she had made a good recovery. She was in a wheelchair for weeks, but surgical nails would be removed from her bone in time.

Judge Martin Nolan said it was a “gravely aggravating factor” that Joyce left the scene and said it was for this reason that he was imposing a custodial sentence.

The judge imposed a two- year sentence with the final one suspended and disqualified Joyce from driving for four years from yesterday.

In a letter to the court, Joyce said: “I’m sorry, I’m truly sorry. I have to live with it for the rest of my life, it was a mistake.”