16 pints, cocaine, cannabis – then uninsured driver mows down and kills musician, 24
A MAN who drove over and killed a pedestrian in 2013 before driving off and fleeing the country was finally behind bars yesterday.
Martin Linehan, 36, formerly of Oaks Lane, Newbury Park, Essex, was given eight years in jail and banned from driving for 40 years for causing the death of French man Gabriel Lege.
But before he could face justice, he had to extradited back to Ireland. At the time of the horrific incident, he was a disqualified driver and was driving without any insurance.
In front of his victim’s family, who flew over from France to see him jailed, he pleaded guilty to eight charges.
The most serious was causing Apple worker Gabriel’s death due to dangerous driving.
The 24-year-old, who the court heard was an accomplished musician with a wide circle of friends, was crossing a junction in Cork city on the evening of October 31 after a night out.
Linehan, who had drank around 16 pints and had snorted cocaine earlier in the evening, broke two sets of red lights on his way home with a friend before careering into Gabriel.
For a moment, Gabriel clung to the bonnet of Linehan’s work van and shouted at him to stop but he kept on driving.
This was despite the pleas of Linehan’s front seat passenger.
Cork Circuit Criminal Court
‘Van rolled over him and drove on’
heard how he had pleaded with Linehan to stop but he just kept on driving.
Gabriel tragically lost his grip and slipped down off the bonnet and was crushed under the vans’ front and back wheels.
Linehan left him for dead, got rid of the van he was driving at the depot of a courier firm that had sacked him days previously and drove out of Cork in his own car which he had parked at the depot. He then went out drinking in a pub in a village where he grew up but got into a fight and was kicked out.
Meanwhile, witnesses rushed to Gabriel’s side and gave him first aid. Although he was conscious and breathing, he suffered a heart attack on the way to Cork University Hospital and died.
Cork Circuit Criminal Court heard yesterday that on the night of October 31, Linehan had gone to a friend’s house ‘where he consumed quantities of cocaine and cannabis’. The two friends then went drinking around the Blackrock area of Cork and then into Cork city.
Detective Garda Anne O’Flynn, who the judge commended for her detective work in the case, told the court Linehan had drunk ‘15 or 16 pints of beer’ from just after noon that day til after 9pm in the evening.
Moments before the crash, Gabriel was seen running across the pedestrian crossing at a city centre junction.
‘He began running so he could make it across the road,’ Dept Gda Flynn said.
‘He was still several feet from the footpath when the van knocked him over, rolled over him and drove on.
‘Witness at the junction of Union Quay and George’s Street described the driver revving the engine of the van and edging it forward. And several described the van as it broke red lights with tyres screeching.’
Linehan, who had been working as a courier despite being a disqualified driver and uninsured, drove to Belfast, dumped his car and took a ferry to Scotland.
Until he was extradited back to Ireland in May, he lived in the UK and South Africa. Even when he was arrested for assaulting a new girlfriend and her father, he managed to jump bail and evade authorities.
And when he was in custody in the UK, he had the chance to answer questions on Gabriel’s death but refused.
The court heard he had 22 previous convictions, including one for trying to import one tonne of cannabis into the country.
The court also heard that he has 15 road other traffic offences, four of which relate to him driving without insurance.
Charges he pleaded guilty to included dangerous driving causing death, failure to stop at the scene of an accident, driving a defective vehicle, driving without insurance and driving using insurance from another vehicle.
Det. Gda Flynn told the court: ‘Martin Linehan expressed absolutely no remorse in my dealings with him. In the last half an hour I was handed a letter of apology which he wrote to the family.’
Judge Seán Ó Donnabháin said the fact that he ‘must have seen’ Gabriel was a serious aggravating factor. ‘His behaviour then and thereafter is entirely the behaviour of a person who has only one consideration: himself. He went to have more drink and play pool. Where in any of that scenario can I find remorse? I can’t.’