A long-distance lorry-driver was given a suspended two-year sentence and banned from driving for 10 years after pleading guilty to causing the deaths of a Galway city couple in a head-on collision last February.
Dean Stokes (34), Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, pleaded guilty at Galway Circuit Criminal Court yesterday to two counts of dangerous driving, which caused the deaths of Therese and Séamus English, Salthill, Galway.
The couple were pronounced dead at the scene of the accident, which occurred on the main Galway-Dublin road. They were travelling towards Dublin.
Mr English (47) was on his way to Dublin to keep a business appointment, while his wife (45) was to visit her mother in hospital in Dublin.
Stokes had pulled out moments earlier from the car park at Mother Hubbard's pub and restaurant, where he had spent the night, and had turned left towards Oranmore.
Evidence given by Garda Edward Davin, from the accident investigation division at Dublin Castle, suggested Stokes was driving on the wrong side of the road when the impact occurred.
A technical examination of the scene showed that, while Mr English pulled to his left to avoid the impact, Stokes swerved to his right. Both vehicles collided on the hard shoulder on the car's correct side of the road.
Stokes had travelled from the Netherlands the preceding day, arriving at Dublin Port. From there he had made his way to Oranmore and had decided to sleep in his truck in the car park at Mother Hubbard's before making his deliveries in Oranmore.
After his arrest he fully co-operated with the Garda investigation. He accepted that he must have been travelling on his incorrect side of the road, and this would have explained why he swerved to his right.
Garda Davin estimated from the truck's tachograph machine and from debris at the scene that Stokes was travelling at just under 50 km/h (31mph) and the car at just over 90 km/h (56mph) when the impact occurred.
Judge Raymond Groarke said serious driver error and a lapse in concentration had caused the tragic accident. The Englishes had done nothing wrong and were "simply in the wrong place at the wrong time". He told Stokes he had caused "utter tragedy in the lives of many people that morning".
Judge Groarke said there was a greater onus or responsibility on drivers of heavy goods vehicles to exercise even more care on the roads, and Stokes had failed in that regard.
The judge accepted evidence from investigating gardaí and defence counsel Martin Giblin SC that Stokes was a decent and hard-working man who was deeply remorseful for what he had done and traumatised since it happened.
While the seriousness of the offences would have to be marked with a prison sentence, nothing would be served by requiring him to serve that sentence, the judge said.
He imposed a two-year sentence on each charge, to run concurrently, and suspended them on condition that Stokes keep the peace and be of good behaviour for three years. He disqualified him from driving for 10 years, noting that this sanction could only take effect within this jurisdiction.