A round-up of today’s other court news stories in brief:
Jail for driver who wreaked havoc in city
A 20-year-old Limerick man has been jailed for 18 months by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for driving in a manner which created a substantial risk of causing death or serious harm to another.
Liam Keane, Singland Gardens, Ballysimon, Limerick, pleaded guilty to reckless endangerment, driving over the legal alcohol limit and driving without insurance at Mountjoy Square West and dangerous driving at North Frederick Street, Dublin on January 16th, 2005.
Judge Katherine Delahunt said Keane chose to "wreak havoc" by driving a car while disqualified, without insurance and having consumed alcohol. She said he "put people in fear of their lives and chose to avoid the gardaí in the most reckless of circumstances".
Judge Delahunt also imposed a €1,000 fine and disqualified Keane from driving for five years.
Tougher sentence for robbery
A man who stole €9,000 from an 81-year-old woman, the grandmother of his accomplice, is to serve four years in prison after the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday ruled his original sentence was unduly lenient. The court heard the man's accomplice has since committed suicide.
Dublin Circuit Criminal Court had imposed a five year sentence, but had suspended all of that term, on Gareth Dowdall (26), of Drumalee Road, Cabra, after he pleaded guilty on May 3rd last to robbery of the woman in December 2003.
A five-year suspended sentence was also imposed on Dowdall's accomplice, Jonathan Clarke (25), of O'Devaney Gardens, Dublin. The sentences were suspended in both cases on the condition that both men remain out of trouble.
In ruling that the trial judge erred in suspending the entire of the five-year sentence, Mr Justice Nial Fennelly said the court would impose a sentence of five years imprisonment to date from December 3rd, 2004 and would suspend the last year of that sentence on Dowdall entering into a bond for good behaviour.
Six years for killing ex-soldier
A Sligo man who had consumed five ecstasy tablets, cocaine, hash and alcohol on the night of an unlawful killing, has been sentenced to six years for the manslaughter of a former soldier in Sligo at the Central Criminal Court yesterday.
Mark Sweeney (22), Finisklin Road, was acquitted of murder last November by a jury but found guilty of the manslaughter of Paul Watters (45), Avondale, Sligo, at Stephen Mews, in the town, on July 27th, 2004.
Mr Justice Paul Carney said Sweeney had taken a considerable amount of pints as well as ecstasy, hash and cocaine on the night of the fatal incident.
He said this led him into the "appalling, uncharacteristic violence in which he was kicking a friend in the face".
Mr Watters had been a member of the Defence Forces in the 1980s.