Addict who drove wrong way on motorway in stolen vehicle gets three years

A Dublin drug addict who drove the wrong way on the M50 motorway in a Garda car chase last year has been jailed for three years at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

Gardaí pursued Stewart Perrie (aged 35) of Achill Road, Ballybrack along the Ballymun exit of the M50 on November 7, 2007, when the owner of a stolen Jeep reported seeing it travelling that route.

Perrie told gardaí he panicked and accelerated the Jeep, which received €6,7274 worth of damage, to over 120km per hour.

Perrie rammed the Garda patrol car, which had been travelling parallel to the Jeep, before making a U-turn and driving northbound on the southbound carriageway.

Sergeant Charlie Armstrong told prosecution counsel Mr Damien Colgan BL that gardaí in the rammed patrol vehicle recovered and followed the Jeep to a roundabout, where they saw it lose control and slide down an embankment.

He said Perrie tried to escape on foot but was reprimanded and brought to Ballymun Garda Station.

He said the father-of-two claimed he had been paid €250 to take the Jeep from Carlow to Swords by unnamed Dublin criminals.

He added that Perrie apologised in his Garda interview to anyone he may have injured by his dangerous driving.

Judge Frank O’Donnell noted that Perrie had 37 previous convictions, including for theft of a motorbike. Ms Lily Buckley BL, defending, said his last circuit court conviction was in 1999, but he had spent time in jail in the UK since, having received a three-year and a five-year sentence there.

Judge O’Donnell noted that Perrie had written off the Jeep during his crime last November.

"Your driving was criminally dangerous, that’s for sure, on the hard shoulder and into the centre of the road," he said. "You eventually lost control but you seemed hell-bent to continue your crime. You were lucky you weren’t hurt or seriously injured."

He sentenced him to three years each for his unlawful use of the jeep, its criminal damage, the damage to the patrol car and reckless endangerment. He imposed a six-month sentence for driving without insurance and disqualified him from driving for six years from his release from prison.

He gave him four months on each of two counts of dangerous driving and took his driving without a licence into consideration. All sentences will run concurrently.