A Donegal man has been jailed for four months and banned from driving for a total of seven years.
Gerald Crawford was sent to prison by Judge Éiteáin Cunningham when he appeared at Letterkenny District Court.
Craword, a 40-year-old with an address in Ballybofey, was involved in a crash and refused to give gardai a breath sample at a time when he was to be serving a driving disqualification.
A three-month suspended sentence, which Crawford was under at the time, was also triggered.
The case was outlined by Sergeant Maurice Doyle.
At 4.55pm on March 21, 2023 at Milltown, Convoy, following a two-vehicle road traffic collision, Crawford refused to provide gardai with a breath sample when directed to do so. The charge is contrary to section 9 (2) (c) of the Road Traffic Act, 2010 as substituted by section 7 of the Road Traffic (No.2) Act 2011.
Crawford was further charged with driving without insurance and driving without a driving licence on the same date.
Following his arrest, Crawford was said to be fully compliant with gardai.
Crawford was also charged with being intoxicated in a public place, namely Donegal Road, Ballybofey, On February 18, 2020. Sergeant Doyle told the court that the defendant was found in an intoxicated state and was “staggering around the place” and he was arrested.
The court heard that Crawford has 22 previous convictions. In 2023, Crawford was handed a three-month suspended sentence and disqualified from driving for four years.
Solicitor for Crawford, Mr Frank Dorrian, said that a probation and welfare report on behalf of his client was both detailed and helpful as well as “pointed in many ways”.
Mr Dorrian said that Crawford’s offending was “predicated by reckless decision making under the guidance of alcohol”.
He said: “This man was in despair, he acted impulsively, making a bad situation worse and when the heavens fell he went under that canopy and it was effectively a period of disregard for one’s own future”.
Mr Dorrian told the court that Crawford, who was accompanied to court by his partner, has been attending AA meetings.
“He is doing his best at a belated stage,” Mr Dorrian said, adding that “there seems to be a degree of insight arriving”.
Judge Cunningham, having given what she described as careful consideration to the matter, said she had to be cognisant of the relevant previous convictions and pointed out that a “variety of different sentencing options” have been afforded to Crawford, including fines, community service orders and a suspended sentence.
“Unfortunately, it does not seem as if any of these have made a difference in circumstances where he continues to offend,” Judge Cunningham said. An aggravating factor in the case, Judge Cunningham said, was that Crawford put other road users at risk in driving while disqualified.
Judge Cunningham said she had “no alternative” but to impose a custodial sentence.
Crawford was give a total of four months in prison and disqualified from driving for seven years.
Regarding the suspended sentence given to Crawford in 2023, the court heard that a custodial sentence of three months was suspended for two years on condition of Crawford entering into a bond to be of good behaviour and commit no further offence.
Sergeant Doyle moved an application to trigger the sentence. Judge Cunningham revoked the suspended element and applied that three-month sentence.