An uninsured motorist who drove a defective vehicle while under the influence of drugs has been jailed for knocking down a retired doctor in Co Mayo and causing him “life-changing and catastrophic injuries”.
Judge Eoin Garavan sentenced Patrick Sweeney (20), of Claremorris Road, Ballinrobe, to five years' imprisonment, with the final year suspended, after he was convicted of dangerous driving causing serious bodily harm to former Castlebar GP Dr Paul Carney. Sweeney was also banned from driving for a decade.
At Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court on Friday, Judge Garavan said the incident that took place on June 14th, 2023, on the N84 Castlebar to Ballinrobe road, which left Dr Carney with devastating brain trauma and physical injuries, was “entirely unnecessary and entirely avoidable”.
The judge noted that Dr Carney, a father of five and grandfather of 16, was out enjoying the freedom of his first days of retirement and the pleasure of cycling in the countryside.
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He said Dr Carney had been deemed cancer-free a short time before the incident.
“Imagine the happiness of that man on a beautiful summer day,” the judge added.
The court heard that Sweeney, who was driving his mother’s Toyota Avensis, was uninsured and had traces of cannabis and cocaine in his system. He was travelling at 115km/h on the N84 at one point and admitted to gardaí afterwards that he could not avoid the collision due to his excessive speed.
The judge noted that Sweeney, who had two passengers in his vehicle, failed to stop at the scene of the collision, but returned within minutes.
The court previously heard that Sweeney had, six minutes or so earlier, been involved in a game of “tag” with an unknown BMW driver, which saw the vehicles passing each other out on the road and causing alarm to other road users.
The judge described Sweeney’s driving as “manifestly dangerous”.
At a previous sitting, Dr Carney’s daughter, Brenda, read a victim impact statement in which she said her father was “on top of the world” before the crash, having received a clean bill of health after going through gruelling cancer treatment.
“Life was good and he was embracing it with gusto, as he always did,” she said.
She said her father’s “soul and his spark” have been taken away since the incident. He will never be able to live independently and he will never return to the home he loved and worked so hard for all his life, she said.
“Dad is living but he has no quality of life. We are grieving but we have no grave.”
Sweeney’s prison sentence was backdated to October 18th, when he was first taken into custody.
