Drunk driver who killed boy, 4, jailed ‘as an example’

A drunk driver jailed for the death of a four-year-old boy was sentenced “as an example” to the wider community “rather than an individual”, his lawyers have submitted to the Court of Appeal.

Finbarr O’Rourke, aged 41, from Laurel Drive, Portlaoise, Co Laois, had pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing the death of Ciarán Treacy, aged 4, at Ballymorris, Portarlington, on April 17, 2014. Ciarán’s mother, Gillian, was also severely injured as a result of the incident.

Judge Keenan Johnson sentenced O’Rourke to seven and a half years imprisonment at Portlaoise Circuit Criminal Court on November 3, 2015.

Opening an appeal against sentence yesterday, O’Rourke’s barrister, Conor Devally, submitted that the tariff was too high and O’Rourke was not given due mitigation “perhaps... because the [sentencing] judge was so moved by this case”.

Mr Devally said O’Rourke “should be sentenced for what he did” but the view was that he had to be “seen as an example rather than an individual”.

Mr Devally said it was difficult “for me to even do this” because it made O’Rourke seem as though he wanted to minimise what he had done. “He does not.”

However, O’Rourke was “unfortunate”, Mr Devally said, that his sentence had been seized upon as a lesson for the nation to learn.

O’Rourke had turned his personal life around, had “utterly changed” his relationship with alcohol, and had recently expressed an interest in making himself available to the likes of the Road Safety Authority in the advocacy against what he himself had done.

Mr Devally said O’Rourke and a companion had gone out in the town on the date in question to have some drinks with a view to staying in his companion’s home. However, they had “a tiff, a stupid falling out” and O’Rourke “fatally took to the car” without any premeditation.

Mr Devalley said that Ms Treacy’s vehicle was met in a head-on collision. The engineering evidence appeared to establish that on a gradual bend O’Rourke lost concentration, leaving no opportunity to avoid a collision.

O’Rourke was found down the road walking away from the scene. He was on the phone to the man he was drinking with earlier.

He was arrested and conveyed to the Garda station and he vomited a number of times on the way.

The sentencing judge interpreted O’Rourke’s phonecall to his companion as a request to be collected. However, the evidence was never to that effect, Mr Devalley said. He never asked to be removed from the scene at all.

Counsel for the DPP, John William Fennelly, said a court was obliged to have regard to O’Rourke’s absence from the scene. The judge was entitled to view that with some alarm, Mr Fennelly said, as a matter that aggravated the sentence.

Reserving judgment, Mr Justice George Birmingham said the court hoped to deliver its decision on this “sensitive” case next week.