Man avoids jail for dangerously driving stolen motorcycle

A young man dangerously drove a stolen motorcycle along Dublin city streets until he was boxed in by garda patrol cars, a court has heard.

Ryan O’Driscoll (20), of St Mary’s Mansions in Dublin’s north inner city, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to dangerous driving at Grace Park Road, Dublin 9, on March 6th, 2015.

Judge Patricia Ryan sentenced O’Driscoll to 3½ years imprisonment, which she backdated to February 20th last. She suspended the balance of the sentence and disqualified him from driving for four years.

Garda Manus Keane told Tom Neville BL, prosecuting, that gardaí­ first spotted the motorcycle, driven by O’Driscoll with a rear passenger, on the Malahide Road. The bike did a U-turn and drove back past the patrol car which activated its lights and began to follow them.

Garda Keane said during the pursuit that the motorbike made no attempt to stop while it drove at speed overtaking stationary cars and driving on the wrong side of the road. The bike wove in and out of traffic at Fairview Strand and drove on a footpath.

Break free

The garda said they managed to overtake the motorcycle while approaching a junction and pull the patrol car in front of it, but O’Driscoll managed to break free onto the Clontarf Road.

O’Driscoll then collided with a second patrol car and Garda Keane was able to use his car to box the bike in. O’Driscoll was then arrested. The motorcycle had incorrect plates fitted and had been stolen the previous month.

Garda Keane agreed with Pieter Le Vert BL, defending, that O’Driscoll said he bought the motorcycle but he had been unable to confirm this.

Mr Le Vert said O’Driscoll had been quite easily led at this point in his life and had fallen in with an older peer group. He began abusing cocaine and served a number of sentences at Oberstown.

He said his client was now serving a sentence for the first time in Mountjoy Prison which had been a “tremendous wake up and terrible shock.” He said O’Driscoll was using his time in Mountjoy productively but was determined not to return.

O’Driscoll, who was 18 at the time of the incident, has 84 previous convictions, 64 of which are for road traffic offences.

He is currently serving a six-month sentence for minor road traffic offences and is due for release this week.