JAILED FOR OVER NINE YEARS DRINK DRIVER WHO INJURED FOUR IN HIGH-SPEED CRASH
AN “absolutely wicked and disgraceful” drunk driver who was more than twice the limit when he ploughed head-on into an oncoming car injuring four people was handed a nine-and-a-half year jail sentence yesterday.
Half of the sentence handed down at Downpatrck Crown Court is to be served on licence,
Judge Piers Grant also banned Emmet Peter Christopher Magee (33) from driving for 10 years.
In a scathing judgment he branded Magee’s behaviour as selfish and irresponsible.
“Your driving was absolutely wicked and disgraceful,” declared the judge.
Aprevioussix-monthsuspended sentence was also activated by Judge Grant that will be served consecutively, making Magee’s total jail time five years and three months.
“You have inflicted enormous damage on a significant number of people... you are the cause of that, simply because of your selfishness and irresponsibility,” he said.
Magee, from Sylvan Street in Belfast, had entered guilty pleas to four counts of causing grievous bodily injury by driving dangerouslyontheBryansfordRoad in Newcastle. He also entered pleas to taking his mother’s car without consent, dangerous driving, driving while unfit, driving without insurance and possessing cannabis, all committed on May 31 last year.
Describing Magee’s offences as “appalling behaviour”, the judge outlined how at around 11pm the Volkswagen Golf driven by Magee and with his girlfriend Julie Mercer in the passenger seat sped up behind a works van and then proceeded to overtake it at around 70mph coming into a left-hand bend.
Magee was driving back home having spent the day drinking in Newcastle.
But he crashed head-on into a Ford Mondeo being driven by student nurse Laura McKibben, withherfriendsEmmaRiceand Daire Henry also in the car.
Judge Grant said the photographs from the scene showed “horrific” damage to each car in a “scene of utter devastation” where Miss McKibben was “given absolutely no chance whatsoever”toavoidacollision.
Turning back to what hap- pened at the crash scene, the judge said the men in the van found “Julie Mercer slumped, struggling to breathe”.
Despite this, the court heard that Magee clambered over her “using her as a form of lever”, causing her breathing to become even more laboured, and this, said the judge, showed that Magee was “concerned only about himself ”.
He was then observed urinating at the side of the road, “struggling (to stand) and smelling of alcohol”, said the judge, who added that a blood sample showed Magee was “more than twice the limit”.
The four victims all had to be cut from the wreckage and had suffered multiple fractures along with “significant mental health trauma”.
When interviewed, Magee admitted that he had been driving drunk, telling officers: “I’m just gutted, I made a mistake.”
AtthetimeofthecrashMagee was the subject of a suspended sentence for a dangerous driving offence. While Judge Grant noted that Magee had confessed and showed remorse, his victims’ injuries were “extremely grievous”.
Passing sentence, the judge said no term he could impose “couldwashawayorwipeaway” the damage they have had to endure.
❝ You have inflicted enormous damage on a number of people due to your irresponsibility