CBS table quiz

A mother and child were injured when struck by a trailer which became loose after hitting a bump on the road Dundalk Circuit Criminal Court was told last week.

Aidan Smith, aged 47, from Liscomiskery, Smithboro, Co Monaghan, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing serious bodily harm.

Evidence was given that the mother and her son were walking to school along the Avenue Road on September 28 2017. The trailer was being towed by a jeep driven by the accused when it broke loose and careered across the road and struck the footpath where the woman and child were walking. She was removed by air ambulance to St James Hospital in Dublin and her son was taken to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital.

A garda witness who attended the scene said that the trailer had also collided with a telegraph pole and broken it.

An inspection of the trailer revealed that the wheel rim was corroded, it had no effective brakes, there was no braking system to prevent it from rolling if it broke away from the vehicle towing it. and there was no lock on the hitch to prevent unintentional separation. The court heard how this meant it would become detached if it hit a bump on the road. The jeep was in good condition.

The accused had made a statement describing how he had bought the trailer second hand the day before and was using it to transport another trailer. The road was very bumpy and all of a sudden the trailer broke away. He pulled in and dialled 999 but was so shaken that he couldn’t speak and handed the phone over to someone else to talk.

The woman suffered two broken toes and have to have plates placed in her foot. She dislocated her knee and had torn ligaments and had to receive skin grafts on her foot and knee. She also had a dislocated shoulder. She was in hospital for five weeks and then had to attend to have dressings changed up until Christmas 2017. Her son sustained a shattered shin bone and cracked ribs and has had to attend counselling.

In her victim impact statement, the woman described how she had to have two operations as a result of the accident and was still in pain. She suffered many sleepless nights and the incident had damaged their live as a family as she could no longer care for her son, who has special needs. She could no longer work as a home help and feels that she is no longer a mum. She had put on weight as she can’t walk. ‘I feel I am no longer the mother I was,’ she stated. She felt for her daughter who now has to take care of both her and her son.

The accused’s barrister said his client was a single man, living with his 88 year old mother, whom he cared for. He was a part-time farmer and also works parttime as a landscape gardener. He suffers from depression and is remorseful for what happened. As a carer himself, he has an insight into the impact on the injured party and was deeply sorry for what he had done. It was a momentary lapse which had caused him to use the trailer.

Judge James McCourt described the incident as ‘an act of recklessness and carelessness which was eminently foreseeable’. Noting that the accused was a farmer and part-time gardener, he found that he must have known that it was more likely than not that if the trailer hit a bump the likelihood was that it would disconnect.

He said he couldn’t ignore the dilapidated state o the trailer which was dangerously defective and he felt it was an aggravating fact that someone as a farmer and who must know how these mechanisms operate, failed to secure the trailer.

In mitigation he said it was abundantly clear that the accused was not the sort of man who would ordinarily come to the attention of the gardai and he had co-operated fully and shown genuine remorse.

He adjourned the case for the preparation of a Probation Report to see if the accused was suitable for community service in lieu of a prison sentence of one year.

A table quiz in aid of the CBS Primary School takes place on Friday night in McGeough’s, Roden Place, at 9.15 pm sharp. Admission €20 per table of four. Finger food and raffle on the night,