Driver found guilty of hit and run after collision
Carlow Courthouse
A DRIVER who had 19 previous convictions was put off the road for four years and fined a total of €1,100 in Carlow District Court recently after being found guilty of driving without insurance and for leaving the scene of an accident.
Mathew Kennedy, Knockanarrigan, Donard, Co Wicklow wasn’t in court to answer various summonses arising from an accident that occurred in Ballinfoyle, Donard, Co Wicklow on 26 June 2023.They include a charge of hit and run (leaving the scene of an accident), driving without insurance or tax and of failing to produce an insurance cert.
The other driver who was involved in the accident told the court that he’d been returning from Dublin on the N81 on 26 June 2023 when he had to take a detour into back roads because there’d been an accident.
The witness continued that he was halfway around a bad bend when a collision with a car, a Volkswagen Passat, occurred. The court heard that he got out of his jeep, while the other driver, Mr Kennedy, got out of his car and shouted “it’s 50/50, lad, it’s 50/50”. The witness said there was no insurance disc displayed on Mr Kennedy’s car and that he didn’t give him his name.
Mr Kennedy got back into his car and drove off, the witness said. Investigating officer Garda Damien Prendergast told the court that he was called to the scene of the accident, where he met the driver of the jeep, who gave him the registration of the Passat.
He continued that the car was registered to 31-year-old Mr Kennedy and that when he called to his address, he admitted to being in the accident, while also showing him a driving licence that was out of date. Garda Prendergast continued that Mr Kennedy gave a statement a few days later, in which he said that he remembered going around a bad bend and there being a “small impact” between his car and a jeep.
Garda Prendergast said that Mr Kennedy told him he reckoned that the blame was 50/50 because they’d been travelling at similar speeds.
Solicitor Joe Farrell, who represented Mr Kennedy in his absence, submitted that the witness hadn’t given a description of the defendant and that while Mr Kennedy had admitted to being involved in an accident, he hadn’t specified which one.
Judge Geraldine Carthy said that she had “no doubt that it was the gentleman (Mr Kennedy) in question”. She convicted and sentenced him on all summonses, put him off the road for four years and fining him €300 for driving without insurance, while also fining him €800 on the other offences.
