Driver escapes jail over death of close friend
Deceased had ‘put hand on wheel’
A MAN charged with careless driving causing the death of his close friend has been given a nine-month suspended sentence.
Lee Peacock, 25, initially told gardaí he had swerved his car prior to the fatal accident to avoid an oncoming vehicle, but later said it was to avoid a pedestrian on the road.
He later accepted the deceased woman, Jane Dardis, a front-seat passenger, had put her hand on the steering wheel.
Peacock said he had not wanted to attribute any blame to Ms Dardis.
The court heard Peacock had consumed four glasses of wine over a number of hours before the collision and was travelling at 80kph in a 60kph speed zone.
Peacock, of Seafield Court, Lower Main Street, Rush, Co. Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to careless driving causing the death of Ms Dardis at Rush Road, Skerries, on October 25, 2016.
He has no previous convictions.
Yesterday, Judge Martin Nolan expressed his condolences to Ms Dardis’s family on the terrible tragedy.
Judge Nolan said it was an unusual sentencing case in that the facts of what occurred were not clear and the court had to make a determination of what happened from the evidence before it.
He said it was certain that the car had swerved abruptly to the left, collided with something and Ms Dardis sustained fatal injuries. He said the question was why the car had swerved.
He said, from the evidence before him, Peacock was ‘in a perfectly fit state’ when he made his first statement in hospital that he had swerved to avoid an oncoming car.
In relation to Peacock’s second statement, that there had been a pedestrian on the road, Judge Nolan found the evidence that youths had been seen running up the road to be ‘extremely tenuous’.
The judge said he had come to the conclusion the swerve was due to the ‘interplay between the driver and the front-seat passenger’. He said Peacock may have a ‘misplaced sense of loyalty’ to Ms Dardis.
In mitigation, Judge Nolan said Peacock had co-operated with gardaí and was truly remorseful.
A victim-impact statement from Ms Dardis’s family described themselves as now being a ‘heartbroken, devastated family of three’ without her, adding: ‘Jane loved life and life loved her.’
Róisín Lacey SC, defending, said Peacock had a close relationship with Ms Dardis and has been significantly traumatised by her death.
Judge Nolan imposed a ninemonth suspended sentence and he also disqualified Peacock from driving for five years.
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‘He may have had a misplaced loyalty’