EXCLUSIVE: Serial offender Eamonn Lynch has tried to sue the family of his teenage victim Shane Patton after killing him while traveling at 165kph.
Lynch smashed into the teenager after the 18 year old emerged from a side-road in Co Donegal in July 2012.
Lynch, who already had hundreds of previous convictions, was drunk, did not have a driving license and had been banned from driving at the time.
But now it has emerged that the Derryman has tried to claim from the Patton family’s insurance company 123.ie for injuries he suffered.
Shane’s heartbroken mother Julie revealed to Donegal Daily how a letter from Lynch’s legal team arrived at their home in Drumkeen in April, 2014.
“I initially opened the letter and realised it was from Eamonn Lynch and I just gave it to my husband Martin who took it to our solicitor.
“As I understood it he was claiming off our insurance company and was claiming that the crash was in some way Shane’s fault because he came out of a side-road.
“But if he hadn’t have been traveling at twice the speed limit then this might never have happened and Shane might still be here,” she said.
The late Shane Patton with his mum Julie.
At the time Shane was a named driver on Mrs Patton’s insurance policy.
Mrs Patton said she does not know if the claim is still being processed after Lynch was recently found guilty of careless driving causing her son’s death on July 12th, 2012.
She did inform her insurance company in 2014 that a claim had been put in against her policy.
At present her and husband Martin are paying around €1,000 between them for their car insurance.
“I’m not sure if that affected my insurance but it did go up. Perhaps we were just too honest,” she said.
Aged just 18, Shane had just completed his Leaving Cert and had ben accepted onto a course to study to become a mechanic.
Mrs Patton said that she still has many questions to ask surrounding the issue of why the Director of Public Prosecutions decided to pursue a charge of careless driving causing death instead of dangerous driving causing death at Letterkenny Circuit Court.
Lynch pleaded guilty to the careless driving charge and Judge Martin Nolan sentenced him to 18 months in prison.
He is already serving a driving ban until 2023.
Mrs Lynch said herself and husband Martin are due to see their solicitor this week to see if they are in a position to appeal the sentence.
“I’m not even sure what the position is because it was the DPP who decided to press ahead with the careless driving charge.
“We have so many questions still that we would like answered. We realise the Gardai could only do so much and they had to follow the instructions of the DPP,” she said.
Mrs Patton said she wanted to continue to highlight the case so other families might get more answers in similar cases in future.
“We cannot understand why the DPP would not take into account the fact that this man had so many previous convictions.
“We are just ordinary people and nothing like this had ever happened to us before. We were never in a courtroom before.
“We just want to highlight this so that other families might be helped if they are ever in such a position as we found ourselves in,” she added.
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