A 15-year-old driver died when he crashed a car bought only hours before by his 14-year-old cousin, an inquest heard yesterday.
Kevin Greene, from Brinaleck, Derrybeg in Co Donegal, was driving the red Citroen GTI which was bought for €120 just hours before the high-speed accident on January 9th, 2003.
The 15-year-old boy, whose father had died from heart trouble three weeks before, was thrown 20 feet from the front window as the car spun out of control and flipped over on the wet and narrow country road.
None of the three-boys in the vehicle - Kevin, his 14-year-old cousin Martin Ferry, who owned the car, and Patrick Joseph Rogers (16) - was wearing seatbelts.
Martin told Dublin City Coroners' Court that he had bought the car from Colm McFadden, who lived in the region, hours before the accident. "It had no [ number] plates, they were taken off before we bought it," he said. Martin, who was 14 at the time, said they took licence plates from an old abandoned car in a quarry to put on the vehicle before they went driving it.
Patrick said: "The reason we were putting the plates on was so that we wouldn't be noticed." Martin said: "Kevin was doing all the driving. I was in the passenger seat." He said they were driving very fast as the accident happened on a quiet road near the community centre in the town.
Patrick added: "We were doing 80 or 90 miles an hour at the time." He noticed sparks coming from the back of the car, and as he went to tell Kevin about it, the back went sideways as if swerving to avoid a pothole.
Patrick, who was in the back seat, said it then flipped and started to turn over.
"It felt like about 10 times," he said. As the car stopped, Patrick was the only one left inside. The others had been thrown through the windscreen.
Sgt John McDaid, a vehicle inspector in Donegal, said there was extensive damage to the entire body of the car and the roof and a front wheel were buckled.
The Citroen was in a fair and serviceable condition before the accident, he told the inquest.
Garda Fergus McGroary said the youngsters were driving on a dark, narrow, back road in wet conditions.
There was 20 feet between where Kevin lay on the road and the front of the car which had careered off into a bog. "There was 110 feet from where the car left the road to where it stopped when we arrived at the scene." The inquest heard the car could have gone out of control after hitting a pothole at high speed.
Garda McGroary said a file had been forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions but no action was taken.
Colm McFadden, who sold the Northern Ireland registered car to the youths on the day of the accident, said that he had just bought it as a stock car for €100, and the only problem with it was that the clutch was "slipping".
He said that Martin had phoned him and asked him to sell on the car around 9.30pm that night. Mr McFadden admitted he was aware that Martin was aged 14 at the time.
The inquest heard that Kevin was rushed from Letterkenny Hospital to Dublin's Beaumont Hospital within 24 hours of the accident. He had serious brain injuries, including a fractured skull, and his condition did not improve.
The court heard that his mother, Margaret, made the difficult decision to donate his organs after it was found his brain was not functioning on January 17th and he was declared dead the following day.
The jury returned a verdict of accidental death.