Automatic time off for good behaviour and the majority of the sentence being suspended means the convicted driver will spend 9 months of his 3½ year sentence in jail.
A motorist who hit a cyclist causing him brain damage will serve 9 months in prison after most of his sentence was suspended.
Dylan Meade (21) of An Cussan, Lisbrack Road, Longford, had a jail term of 3½ years imposed, though 2½ years were suspended.
And with a quarter of the remaining 12-month term taken off as remission, he will be freed in 9 months; a release date of September 2016.
Meade was driving on Ongar Distribution Road, Blanchardstown, Dublin, on August 2nd, 2013, when he hit cyclist Alex Dobresku.
Witnesses said they saw the victim, a married father of one from Romania, thrown eight feet into the air on impact.
Advertisement
Mr Dobresku was left with a brain injury, which both he and his wife said had completely changed his life.
“I would be dead now if it were not for God and the doctors,” he said in a statement read to the court by barrister Ronan Kennedy, acting for the prosecution.
“The guy who hit me not only destroyed my life, he destroyed my future,” the statement added.
The victim’s wife, also in statement read to the court, said her husband had behaved like a 15-year-old since the crash; acting inappropriately in public and having difficulty being a father to the couple’s daughter.
Related News
Ms Dobresku added her husband’s brain injury also resulted in him behaving violently and unpredictably.
He had become paranoid and only knew he had been in an accident because he had been told so.
As well as suffering ongoing brain trauma, he had suffered from amnesia for four months after the collision.
Garda Niall Phelan told the court the van Meade was driving had been involved in at least two other incidents earlier on the day of the crash in Blanchardstown.
Meade said in a Garda interview that he had only taken over the driving from his brother in law because he was “out of his head on pills”.
Meade was found to have no drink or drugs in his system at the time.
He pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing serious harm, failing to stop after an accident, driving without a licence and driving without insurance.
When the 3½ year jail term was imposed with all but one year suspended, Judge Catherine Murphy conceded it may seem light to the family of the victim.
However, she added there were strict conditions attached to Meade while freed under the suspended portion of the sentence.
The conditions included probation supervision, abstinence from drugs and alcohol and attending mental health appointments.
Topics
