The High Court has dismissed an action for damages against Fingal County Council after a car crashed after allegedly striking a "crater of a pothole" on the Swords Road in Dublin. Costs of the action were also awarded to the council, with a stay on the costs order in the event of an appeal.
Weldon Costello (34), Edenmore Crescent, Raheny, Dublin, had claimed the council was negligent in failing to repair the pothole. Mr Costello had told the court he lost control of his car after it struck the pothole in May 1997.
In the High Court yesterday, Mr Justice Barry White dismissed Mr Costello's claim, saying he was not satisfied that the accident had occurred in the manner described. Mr Costello "was not a reliable witness", the judge found.
During the two-day hearing, Mr Costello said he lost control of his car after striking the pothole. After that, he said, the car adopted "a mind of its own" and "took off". He was travelling at no more than 40mph.
He was in Beaumont Hospital for eight days. He suffered injuries to his back, internal bleeding and an operational scar.
Mr Justice White referred to evidence that relatives of Mr Costello went to the scene a few days later and took several photographs, including one of a person putting their arm in a large pothole. They could not be found.
The judge did not accept that the photographs ever existed. He accepted evidence from a council engineering expert that Mr Costello should have felt a bump while driving over a pothole.