Driver is imprisoned for having no car insurance

There were multiple cases of drivers fined for no insurance at Longford District Court yesterday with one man, who had previously driven again on the same day he had been disqualified, was sent to prison.

Edward Keenan, of Curracreehan, Moydow, Co Longford, stood to the side of the court while the judge was told of the charges against him.

Wearing a tracksuit and runners, he had one hand on his hip and the other on the back of the wooden bench where his solicitor was seated.

Judge Séamus Hughes was told the 23-year-old had been observed driving on March 10th at 9.10pm with no insurance.

He had been disqualified from driving for the same offence, in October 2015, and had gone out and bought a car on the same day, after court.

He also had 13 previous convictions for road traffic offences.

‘Casual demeanour’

Judge Hughes noted that last year he had given Keenan a sentence of four months in prison, suspended for three years, and had disqualified him from driving for four years.

He asked Keenan’s solicitor whether his client understood the seriousness of his actions.

“He has the most casual demeanour I’ve seen . . . he doesn’t seem worried,” the judge said.

The solicitor said his client was pleading guilty at jeopardy of being sent to prison. He said the behaviour was “an act of daftness”.

“Wait now, it was purposely done under cover of darkness,” the judge said.

Addressing Keenan, he asked whether it had just been the one time he had driven while disqualified.

“Whenever I needed to go to the shop,” said Keenan, who was living at home with his father and was unemployed.

The judge said he would not resile from having given a suspended sentence.

He removed the suspension and added an additional month, imprisoning Keenan for five months in total.

He also disqualified him from driving until 2023.

Looking bemused, Keenan said nothing, but sat down beside a garda at the back of the court and waited to be brought to prison.

Among other insurance cases was that of Benjamin Umair, of Millview, Ballymahon.

He told the judge he had driven his friend’s car in “exceptional circumstances”. His friend had been feeling unwell and had asked him to, he said.

“How long are you in the country?” the judge asked.

“One year,” came the response.

The judge convicted him of driving with no insurance and fined him €250.

Another man, Saheed Amokomowo, of The Willows, Clonbalt Woods, Longford, said he didn’t know he wasn’t insured when he drove a friend’s car.

“She said she had comprehensive insurance,” the student of business and law at NUI Maynooth explained.

“How long are you in the country?” the judge asked.

“Four years,” Amokomowo responded.

“If you have another conviction for no insurance I’ll disqualify you for four years,” the judge said. He fined him €250.

In other business , the judge heard John Blessington, of The Rise, Sallins Park, Sallins, Co Kildare, was charged with offences including driving with no licence, threatening behaviour, breach of the peace and being intoxicated and a danger to himself and others, on March 18th.

Hammer

The 23-year-old had, at one stage, taken a hammer to the pier caps of a house at Coolcor Granard, and cracked them.

Garda Justin Browne said Blessington was “agitated and erratic, with a slight smell of drink off him” when he was apprehended.

He admitted that on St Patrick’s Day he had taken amphetamines and had drunk eight bourbons in two separate pubs.

“It wasn’t a case of drowning the shamrock, the shamrock was pulverised,” Blessington’s solicitor said.

He said his client was under enormous pressure due to a family law case.

The judge remanded him on continuing bail.