Court hears that man was probably asleep as his car drove into young mother and her baby

A court has heard the most likely reason for a driver mounting a footpath in Dublin and killing a young mother is that he fell asleep at the wheel.

Anthony Handley of Whitethorn Grove, Artane, Dublin knocked Olivia Dunne down, while she was out for a walk in Balbriggan with her baby in January 2014.

She died instantly and the court heard her daughter, who was just 15 weeks old, would have died without the immediate medical assistance she received.

One witness described the 64-year-old’s car taking off “like a rocket” and said it never slowed down, but Mr Handley said he had no memory of what happened

His sentence hearing is continuing before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court this afternoon.