A man who was given a six-year driving ban on the day he led gardaí on a high-speed car chase has been jailed for three years by Judge John O'Hagan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Eddie Hutch (27) was already serving a 10-year driving ban when the six-year ban was imposed, and he had been disqualified from driving on 18 separate occasions.
He claimed that he had taken a number of tablets and did not know what he was doing when he took gardaí on two high-speed chases around the north inner city within four days of each other.
Hutch, of Avondale House, Dublin, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving on February 1st 2000 and to reckless endangerment on February 5th 2002.
Garda Maria Flynn said that Hutch had 53 previous convictions dating back to 1989, and 23 of these were for road traffic offences.
Garda Flynn told prosecuting counsel that she arrested Hutch on February 5th at St James's Avenue after gardaí had chased a blue Rover car for about 15 minutes. At all times it exceeded the speed limit and other cars and cyclists were forced to swerve to get out of the way. He eventually pulled in and told gardaí that he was sorry. Two other people were in the car.
Garda Flynn said that just hours earlier Hutch had been convicted of driving without a licence and having no insurance and had been banned from driving for six years. He was also given a two-year suspended sentence.
Garda Glen Somers told the court that he was on patrol in an unmarked car on February 1st and spotted a car been driven at excessive speeds along the Ballybough Road. Gardaí pursued the car across the north inner city for some 20 minutes. They ended up back on the Ballybough Road, where they observed youths at the corner of Clonliffe Road cheering on the speeding car.
Something was then thrown by one of the youths at the Garda car and it was forced to stop. The other car got away, but Garda Somers said that he later received confidential information that Hutch was the driver and he arrested him.
Hutch admitted being the driver. He said that he had taken a number of tablets on the night and someone gave him the keys of the car and he just took them.
Hutch pleaded with Judge O'Hagan for leniency. "I realise how lucky I was, but I was very bad on tablets and didn't know what I was doing."
Judge O'Hagan said that Hutch knew that he should not have been driving and he had been warned continuously, and on that basis he had to impose a custodial sentence.
"Eddie Hutch knows well he shouldn't be driving and he has been in trouble time and time and time again. It doesn't take a lot of intelligence to know that he should not be behind the wheel of a car.
"These offences were not carried out by a youth, as we sometimes read about, but by a mature person who knows he should not be in the driver's seat of a car. He put himself, gardaí and members of the public at risk, and I can't ignore this."