Civil servant’s foul-mouthed insult at female motorist

ROAD RAGE spilled onto a service station car park in Gorey as one motorist accused another of jumping the queue for the pumps.

A senior civil servant was left embarrassed as the District Court heard details of his foul-mouthed behaviour.

And he was convicted of failure to remain at the scene of an accident after driving his Kia Ce’d too close to a stationary Nissan Almera.

Accused Conall O’Connor (48) of 15 Ashwood, Arklow denied all knowledge of any collision.

But CCTV footage put up on the courthouse screen showed that there was certainly no more than the width of a cigarette paper between the two vehicles at the Topaz garage in Gorey.

Judge Gerard Haughton concluded that there had in fact been contact and that O’Connor was responsible for damage to the bumper and to the headlamp of the Nissan driven by Tina Loughlin.

Ms Loughlin from 48 The Chase, Ramsgate, Gorey told how she turned in off the Carnew Road and pulled into the service station behind the Kia on the Sunday afternoon in question, September 20 last year.

The filling station was busy with no pumps free and, when one became vacant, the other driver did not appear to react so she made a move.

However, a third vehicle arrived there ahead of her so she drove past the pump and pulled up once more.

She then became aware of the Kia once more, telling how it hit her as it came alongside, with the driver shouting at her something along the lines of ‘I was here before you. You have no business skipping the queue.’

She told the court that the man in the dark grey car sped off after she said she was going to call the guards.

Tina Loughlin’s 17-year-old daughter Tara also gave evidence and, asked to recall what was said, she asked the court ‘may I swear?’

Given the go ahead, she said her mother had been called ‘a stupid f ***ing c***’ by the driver.

The defendant was not known to either of the witnesses but the registration details of the grey car led gardaí to the door of Conall O’Connor in Arklow.

The Ce’ed was inspected and found to be undamaged, and he insisted that there had been no impact.

In court, he accepted that he had been ‘a bit annoyed’ that day when he went to fill up with diesel while bringing his mother Elizabeth O’Connor for a drive as he believed the other motorist in the queue had been discourteous.

‘I don’t like swearing and I wish I had not sworn,’ said O’Connor. ‘I was not in very good form.’

He said he had no idea that there had been an accident and his mother was in court to state that she felt no impact either.

However, the judge told the father of three that he should have stopped, imposing the hit & run conviction.

After hearing more than an hour of evidence, the judge concluded that what occurred was not a serious accident, setting a fine of €350 and declining to impose any disqualification.