A drink-driving charge against actor Seán McGinley was dismissed yesterday after a judge decided a garda should have formed an opinion about his capacity to drive before he was given a breath test.
Mr McGinley, who starred in the television series Making the Cut, and has a long list of film and theatre credits, was charged with driving with excess alcohol on October 6th last year at Mespil Road in Dublin.
Garda Laura Sheridan told Dublin District Court she saw McGinley's car go through a red light at around 2.35am at Mespil Road and followed him as far as Lansdowne Road where she stopped him. She got a smell of alcohol from his breath and his eyes were bloodshot.
She arrested him and he was taken to Store Street Garda station where, after a 20-minute observation period to ensure he consumed nothing, he was brought to the Lion Intoxilyser breath test machine where he gave a sample to Garda Cliff Harding. The reading was 49 micrograms of alcohol per 100ml of breath.
Garda Sheridan denied she had written eight pages of notes in her notebook back at the Garda station when she was supposed to have been observing Mr McGinley for 20 minutes.
Martin Dully, for Mr McGinley, argued his client should have been under observation from the moment he arrived in the station, not eight minutes after arriving. "He was therefore in unjustified detention for eight minutes," Mr Dully said.
Judge Mary Collins rejected this argument however and said she was satisfied that he was properly under observation while other procedural matters were being carried out.
She believed that while he was under observation and just before the breath test was carried out, "an opinion should have been formed at that stage" with regard to whether he was under the influence to such an extent as to not be able to drive properly. She therefore dismissed the case.