Car wasn’t on road that day, says careless driving accused

A CARELESS DRIVING charge against Tina Clarke (48) formerly of Glenrichards Wood, Poulshone, Courtown, was dismissed after a full hearing at the District Court in Gorey.

Mark Tynan claimed that Ms Clarke drove her Hyundai Santa Fe at him in Poulshone on May 1, 2017, as he stood outside his mother’s house.

The accused insisted that the car did not leave her home on the day in question.

The two things agreed on by both sides were that it was a Bank Holiday Monday and that the weather was good that day.

Judge Gerard Haughton otherwise found himself dealing with what he described as a complete conflict of evidence.

First into the witness box was Mark Tynan who recalled talking to his wife in Poulshone shortly after 5 p.m. that afternoon.

He recalled a Santa Fe driving towards him, tearing up the gravel as it came.

The vehicle knocked his phone from his hand and narrowly missed running over his feet, he told the court.

He recalled how he took refuge in a fence and then snapped photos of the scene showing tyre marks, which he later gave to investigating Garda James Whelan.

He identified the defendant as the driver.

When it was the turn of his wife to give her evidence, Amanda Tynan gave a similar version of events.

She said that her husband had to run in order to avoid being hit by the Hyundai.

She also insisted that Tina Clarke was the driver, adding that Ms Clarke’s daughter was in the driving seat. The accused took the oath. Ms Clarke confirmed that she and her family were living at a house in the Glenrichards Wood estate at the time.

She confirmed that she was the owner of a Hyundai Santa Fe, since disposed of.

However, she was adamant that the vehicle was not on the road that day, and that no one else drove it that day.

The family, she recalled, treated the Bank Holiday Monday as a ‘duvet day’ and she painted a fence in the garden.

Defending solicitor Macarten O’Gorman also called his client’s 17-year-old daughter.

The teenager said that the family decided to paint the fence on the day in question.

Asked by Garda Inspector Seán Clince how she knew the Tynans, the young witness alleged that Mark Tynan assaulted her on a beach in 2016. ‘That’s why there is bad feeling,’ she said.

The allegation was reported but no prosecution resulted.

Her father John Clarke also testified that his wife spent the Bank Holiday painting the fence, from 11.30 in the morning until about 6 p.m.

Judge Haughton commented that, where there is a complete conflict of evidence and a background of ill feeling, the court had to be very wary.

In the absence of independent evidence, the case was dismissed.