Ex-garda to be sentenced for 2004 road death

A former garda who was involved in a series of collisions in July 2004 that killed one man and seriously injured three women …

A former garda who was involved in a series of collisions in July 2004 that killed one man and seriously injured three women will be sentenced today.

Former Special Branch garda Frank Hayes pleaded guilty to failing to stop at the scene of an accident, driving while drunk and causing serious injury to three women.

Hayes had been drinking at a tournament in Stackstown golf club in Rathfarnham before the collisions on July 24th, 2004.

Joy Geary (70), the widow of Gordon Geary (71), who died after Mr Hayes's car collided with theirs, was so badly injured that she was taken by stretcher to her husband's funeral.

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A teenage girl knocked down by the former garda has had to have part of her brain and skull removed.

The court was told that Hayes (53), of Glengara Park, Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, was found to have a breath reading of 84mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood, almost two-and-a-half times the legal limit of 35mg per 100ml.

He has pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing the death of Mr Geary, which carries a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison.

He has also pleaded guilty to failing to stop at the scene of an accident, driving while drunk and causing serious injury to three women.

Hayes retired from the Garda in 2003 after having served 31 years, almost all of that time in the Special Detective Unit.