Banned. But still he killed my lovely son
Distraught mother asks: Why was serial criminal let on road?
THE heartbroken mother of a teenager killed by a serial offender with almost 500 convictions has revealed her shock at discovering that the killer driver had been banned from driving until 2023.
And Eamonn Lynch is believed to have the longest criminal record in Ireland and the UK, with 485 previous convictions.
He smashed into a car being driven by Shane Patton at 165kph just after midnight in July 2012, killing the 18-year-old who had just finished his Leaving Cert.
The boy’s mother Julie told the Irish Mail on Sunday last night that she had only discovered Lynch’s horrific criminal past, including his long driving ban when she Googled him days after Shane was killed.
She said: ‘I just couldn’t believe what I was reading, I had to find out who he was, so I Googled him. I was trying to make sense of it all.
‘It was then that I discovered all the things that he had done and I also found out that he had been banned from driving until 2023. I just couldn’t believe it. I was just so angry. How could he be out on the road? How could he be driving when he was banned for so long?’
Lynch, originally from Derry, pleaded guilty this week to careless driving causing the death of Shane, and was jailed for 18 months when he appeared at Letterkenny Circuit Court. When he smashed into Shane, he had no driving licence, no NCT, was not taxed or insured and was banned from the road.
Mrs Patton is also angry with the legal aid system.
She said: ‘I understand that his barrister was only doing his job but I am so angry that he was given all this legal help and access to a top barrister when he had such a horrific record of crime. How can that be right? People might not understand that I cannot forgive him but I can’t. He should never have been on that road and travelling at that speed. If he had not been on the road then Shane would have been here today,’ she said.
Lynch fled to the North following his crash. However, just before Christmas he was extradited under a European arrest warrant.
He was originally charged with dangerous driving when he was extradited from the North in December – but this week he pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of careless driving, which carries a sentence of up to two years.
If he had been convicted of the original charge of dangerous driving, the career criminal could have faced 10 years behind bars.
The court heard how he was driving a Toyota Celica with his partner just after midnight on July 12 when he crashed. It was caught on the CCTV system of a local service station.
Garda forensic examiners estimated he was travelling at 165kph on the main Ballybofey to Letterkenny Road, which has a 100kph speed limit. Mr Patton, of Cloghroe, Drumkeen, emerged from a side road, but Lynch was travelling so fast that he did not have time to take evasive action and smashed into the teenager.
Shane’s heartbroken mother Julie read a harrowing victim impact statement to the court.
She told how Shane, the eldest of a family of three children, had just completed his Leaving Certificate and had just been accepted onto a course to train as a mechanic.
Mrs Patton said that her entire family were heartbroken by the ‘happy, beautiful boy’ who had been taken from them. Letterkenny Circuit Court also heard how Shane, who had passed his driving test aged just 17, had only ever wanted to be a mechanic.
While he was in school he would tell teachers what was wrong with their cars. Shane’s father, Martin, also in court, was trying his best to get on with his life for the rest of his family, Mrs Patton said.
Judge Martin Nolan firstly expressed his sincere sympathy to the Patton family on the loss of their son and brother Shane.
He told the court that although drink was a factor, the real factor in the case was Lynch’s speed and how he could not avoid the collision because he was driving at such speed.
He sentenced him to 18 months in prison for the careless driving charge and added another three months for drink driving to run concurrently.
‘You may not understand but I can’t forgive him’ ‘I’m angry that he was given all that legal aid’