Teenager dropped phone and didn’t refasten seatbelt before fatal crash

A teenager who died when she was ejected from a car as it plunged into a low-lying field on the Cork-Kerry border had not been wearing a seatbelt.

Caitlin Taylor, 14, had taken off her seatbelt when she dropped her mobile phone in the front car well and had not refastened it, the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee was told yesterday.

The driver of the car, Sarah O’Connell, of Sean Moylan Park, Mallow, Co Cork, was an unaccompanied learner driver, without displaying L plates, on June 15, 2014, at Knockeenahone, Scartaglen, when the incident occurred.