A motorist who claimed he lost control of his car while trying to avoid hitting a fox was cleared of dangerous driving yesterday.
A garda said that he himself had encountered a fox in the same area in Rathfarnham, Co Dublin, when he went to deliver the summons.
Mr David O'Hare (29), a restaurant manager, of Celbridge, Co Kildare, denied the charge arising out of an accident on Dodder View Road, Rathfarnham on October 2nd, 2002.
He told Dublin District Court he could not remember anything about it although a garda gave evidence that, as he lay in hospital shortly afterwards, he said: "A fox had run out on front of me."
His car went on to the incorrect side of the road, striking an oncoming vehicle driven by Mr Ambrose Hynes.
Mr Hynes's wife, Anne (58), who was in the passenger seat, died instantly from the injuries she received. Yesterday their son, Tim, said the family would now have to consider taking a civil action.
Mr O'Hare told the court he could not remember talking to a Garda Terence McColl, who arrived at the hospital and bent over him to check if there was a smell of alcohol off his breath, which there was not.
Before he got a chance to caution the badly injured Mr O'Hare, he "blurted out" that a fox had run out on in front of him, the garda said.
Garda McColl also said that on the day he was dealing with summonses for this dangerous driving case, a fox ran across the same road as he was driving along it. He made inquiries with the UCD department of zoology where a graduate student who carried out a thesis on urban foxes informed him that Rathfarnham was a "fox hot spot".
In a statement given to gardaí after he spent six weeks in hospital, Mr O'Hare said he could not remember anything after the accident, including his reference to the fox. Mr Ambrose Hynes told the court he first saw Mr O'Hare's car "shimmer" before it went out of control and crossed on to his side of the road. "I thought it was going to roll over, but it regained its grip and shot across the road," he said. He had no chance to avoid it and did not see any fox.
Judge Angela Ní Chonduin said: "I have a doubt and, because I have, I am going to dismiss."