Jail sentence for drunk driver ruled unduly lenient

A four-year sentence handed down to a drunk driver who caused a head-on crash which killed three people and an unborn baby in Co Monaghan has today been found to be unduly lenient on appeal.

Kevin McArdle of Longfield, Carrickmacross is now facing the possibility of going back to prison having been released from jail last month.

McArdle was three-and-a-half times over the legal alcohol limit and on the wrong side of the road when he crashed into a car on the Carrickmacross bypass, two days after Christmas in 2010.

Two of his friends were killed, along with the passenger in the other car, 39-year-old Roisin Connolly and her unborn daughter.

McArdle was given a four-year sentence and disqualified from driving for 12 years at Carrickmacross Circuit Court in 2011.

The DPP has today won an appeal in which it argued that the sentence was too lenient, calling the crash "an accident waiting to happen".

McArdle’s lawyers are now asking the three-judge court to consider community service as an alternative to sending him back to prison.

A decision will be made this afternoon.

UPDATE: The three-judge court has given Kevin McArdle two months to submit proposals on how he plans to rehabilitate himself by way of treatment and voluntary service.

Otherwise it has indicated that it will seriously consider increasing his custodial sentence.