AN alcoholic woman, whose drunk driving has left a young man wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life, has been given a two-year suspended sentence by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Christine Tyndall was also banned from driving for 15 years and fined £500. Her 20 previous convictions included road traffic offences in 1992, for which she was banned from driving for two and three years each, and shoplifting. Her 20-year-old victim, Mr John Costelloe, is confined to a rehabilitation institute since the accident and will need professional care for the rest of his life. His economic loss had been estimated at £811,000 up to last May.
Tyndall (35), a mother of two children, of Rathsallagh Park, Shankill, Co Dublin, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving at Kill Lane, Dun Laoghaire, on June 14th, 1997. Her alcohol-blood level was 240/100 millilitres, considerably over the legal limit. She was not insured at the time.
Garda Ronnie Walsh told prosecuting counsel, Mr Justin Dillon, that Tyndall had been drinking in a night-club with her nephew and another young man that night, before driving off in a seriously defective second-hand car which she had bought only hours earlier.
She swerved into Mr Costelloe's car, which spun out of control in Kill Lane and hit a wall. He was rushed to hospital with serious injuries and spent a considerable length of time in intensive care. The witness agreed with defence counsel, Mr Patrick Marrinan SC, that Tyndall's car had not hit Mr Costelloe's vehicle with any significant force.
Ms Catherine Doyle, a Dun Laoghaire social worker, said Tyndall had completed an alcoholism treatment programme and made dramatic progress. She had also gone to counselling and traced her alcohol problems to childhood abuse. Ms Doyle said a custodial sentence would have a negative effect on Tyndall.
Mr Marrinan said Mr Costelloe's life had been "utterly destroyed" by the accident, but asked the court to take Ms Doyle's evidence into account.
Judge Elizabeth Dunne said Mr Costelloe's family were left with a terrible memory of the accident, and Tyndall had an "appalling" list of convictions before the accident. But she had taken significant steps to overcome her alcohol problem as the result of the accident, and the judge decided a prison sentence would not be appropriate in her case.