1996 hero guilty of drink driving

FORMER Wexford hurling star Garry Laffan was in court yesterday (Monday) to plead guilty to drink drive and motor insurance offences.

The judge sitting at Ardcavan heard that the Glynn-Barntown club man – address given as Killurin – was involved in an accident at Hill Street on the afternoon of May 20 last year.

The 41-year-old left his mother’s car at the scene where two other vehicles were damaged in the collision but he was found nearby in an unsteady condition and brought to the barracks to provide a urine sample.

The sample proved that he was considerably over the legal limit and it also turned out that his commercial insurance policy did not extend to the car which he was driving.

Laffan, who was a member of the county hurling squad in the All-Ireland winning season of 1996, was put off the road for two years with convictions handed down for drink drive (fine €500), hit and run (fine €250) and insurance (fine €250) offences.

Judge Gerard Haughton told him that a prison sentence, possibly suspended, would have been considered if he had not paid up €17,000 from his own pocket to cover the cost of the damage to one of the cars.

Defending solicitor Eadaoin Lawlor accepted that her client, a married father of two who works as a carpenter, had been drinking the previous night. She felt that Laffan was in a state of shock when he left the scene on the day in question and that he was very embarrassed by his actions.