Dangerous driving - Why are they still allowed on the road?

By CALLING for an internal investigation by the Garda Commissioner into the garda handling of a case before him, District Court Judge John Neilan may have done a public service, but in a direction which he may not have intended, or anticipated.

That direction could, and should, be in a sharper and more urgent debate on judges’ attitudes to sentencing, which has been the source of public disquiet for quite a long time.

Judge Neilan’s concern arises from the case of two men, both of whom were convicted by the judge of dangerous driving and fined €2,000 each, after being caught driving at speeds of up to 200kph.

The judge, who acknowledged that their driving could have ended in injury or death for them or other drivers, chose not to exercise his judicial right to impose a driving ban on the two men. His reasoning was that if he did disqualify the men from driving, this decision was “likely” to be overturned at Circuit Court level.

Unusually, their bizarre and mindless road behaviour could be seen by horrified viewers of RTÉ’s television news on Thursday evening because the gardaí had possession of a hand-held video recorder which the two defendants used to record their dangerous bravado on the Mullingar bypass.

What Judge Neilan now wants to know is how the video was released to RTÉ, and it is also his belief that the evidence of the arresting officers was “tainted” and embellished by what they saw on the camcorder.

Furthermore, Judge Neilan was appalled by the conduct of the garda officers in the case. He said one of the prosecuting officers had primed the media in respect of the case.

The circumstances of how the recording came to be aired on national television, and whether or not evidence was tainted, may well warrant an investigation.

What the public want to know is how anybody who drove so recklessly, could still be legally allowed to drive.

Quite simply, they should not and Judge Neilan had an opportunity to deliver that message loud and clear. He chose not do so because of what a superior court might, or might not, have done had his decision been appealed.

Rightly or wrongly, the public perception is that the court bowed to a request from the defendants’ solicitor that they be allowed keep their licences, as another court did the same day in relation to Tony Fenton, a disc jockey with Today FM. He was convicted of dangerous driving at Shannon District Court and Judge Joseph Mangan did not disqualify him because his solicitor said his licence was “important to him”.

Both cases raise some intriguing and very pertinent questions to which the public are entitled to answers.

The first instance is a controversial one for other reasons as well, but Judge Neilan is not a stranger to controversy.

Three years ago he made an apology through the Courts Service in relation to remarks he made about two non-national defendants before him in court.

The reported comments were raised in the Dáil, criticised by the National Consultative Committee on Racism, and Longford Chamber of Commerce distanced itself from his comments.

When he threatened to remand drunken drivers in custody for seven days before he sentenced them, Justice Minister Michael McDowell said the move would be unlawful, were it introduced.