Teen jailed after 2001 ramming

A 17-year-old passenger in a stolen car that rammed two garda vehicles has been jailed for two and a half years by Judge Elizabeth Dunne at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Simon Doherty, of Sean O’Casey Avenue, Dublin 1, pleaded guilty to allowing himself to be carried in a stolen vehicle on April 10, 2001.

He has 23 previous convictions, mainly for offences involving joyriding and criminal damage to cars.

This sentence is to run concurrent to his current sentences which include a three-year term he was serving when he commited this offence while on day release from Oberstown House for a funeral, and a nine-month term imposed last March.

Judge Dunne said that while the circumstances of this case were confined to a car park and not a public road where the lives of innocent members of society could have been endangered, a number of gardaí were at risk.

Judge Dunne added that she didn’t believe in the concept of locking someone up and throwing away the key but in this case there were very few mitigating factors she could bear in mind because Doherty went out of his way to avoid justice.

Garda Dominic McGrath told Mr Maurice Coffey BL, prosecuting, that Ms Martina Comiskey’s red Nissan Micra was stolen from outside her house at Bayview Avenue, North Strand, on the night of April 9, 2001.

Gardaí at Dublin Airport observed it speeding around a car park in the early hours of the next morning and pursued it.

A patrol jeep blocked the carpark exit and a patrol car chased behind. As the stolen Micra approached the exit, it slowed down but then accelerated, colliding with the patrol jeep head on.

Gda McGrath said it then reversed and smashed into the patrol car following behind. The Micra was written off but the two garda vehicles escaped with only a few hundred pounds damage. No-one was seriously injured.

All five youths were immediately arrested but firemen had to cut the roof from the car to remove Doherty, who was travelling in the back.

He claimed to have a back injury and was brought to Beaumont Hospital but absconded before he received any medical treatment. He wasn’t re-arrested until May 6.

Mr Bernard Condon BL, for Doherty, said his client was a very young man and had great difficulties in his background.