State application to reactive suspended sentence is rejected

An application by the State to reactivate a suspended sentence given to a 18-year-old last year after he drove a stolen car during a high-speed Garda chase has been rejected by Judge Katherine Delahunt.

Ian Ledden (aged 18) performed a "showing-off" handbrake turn that caused the car he was driving to become airborne, where it turned 180 degree before it almost landed on two youths.

Ledden of Ferrymans Cross, Dublin 1, received a two-year suspended sentence in March 2007 from Judge Delahunt after she heard that he had 23 previous convictions, when he was involved in the high-speed Garda chase.

He had pleaded guilty to unlawful use of a vehicle at Sheriff Street on October 20, 2005.

Garda Linda Harran told the court that Ledden pleaded guilty to selling or supplying €100 worth of cannabis on November 19, 2007.

Mr Cormac Quinn BL, prosecuting, asked that the sentence be reactivated as Ledden had been dealing drugs during the term of the suspension.

Judge Delahunt said there was a positive probation report before the court which indicated that there had been a "turnaround" in the way Ledden had dealt with his life and it stated that he had not come to Garda attention for "some considerable time".

She did not reactivate the sentence after she warned Ledden that if he committed any further offences he would be going back to prison.

Ledden also received a three-year suspended sentence after Judge Delahunt heard that since his sentence hearing in March 2007 he tried to rob a man after taking his vehicle for a test drive.

Garda Fergal Flynn told Mr Quinn that Ledden and an accomplice had met the man as he was cleaning the car outside his house. They arranged to come back in two hours for a test drive.

The man, his girlfriend and Ledden then drove out in the car. The accused asked if he could check the tools in the boot of the vehicle when he took a wheel brace and threatened the owner of the car with demanding his money.

The owner of the car had taken out the spare wheel from the boot and defended himself with it, blocking off Ledden’s blows. He told the would-be robber that his girlfriend had called the gardaí and Ledden dropped the wheel brace and ran off.

Ledden was later identified by both the man and his girlfriend’s in a line-up in the Garda station but he denied the offences in a Garda interview and provided gardaí with a false alibi.