Musician Donovan has been fined €500 and disqualified from driving for two years for dangerous driving.
However, the 77-year-old was told by Judge James McNulty that it would be unsafe to convict him on a charge of being drunk while in charge of a vehicle following submissions by the Scottish folk singer’s legal team on the matter.
Donovan Leitch, with an address at Castlemagner, Kanturk, who had hits including Hurdy Gurdy Man and Mellow Yellow, was in Skibbereen District Court to hear the judge’s decision following a case related to an incident at Aghills, Skibbereen on February 11th, 2023.
Witness Veronica Whooley told the court last year that she contacted gardaí after seeing the car in front of the vehicle in which she was travelling as a passenger going back and forth over the white line from the left to the right side of the road.
Judge McNulty previously convicted Leitch of dangerous driving but had reserved his decision on the drunk in charge allegation. A charge of failing to provide a breath sample to gardaí was dismissed last year after a respiratory specialist told the judge that the singer’s COPD and restricted lung disease would have inhibited his ability to do so.
The judge referred to submissions made to him by Leitch’s counsel, Michael McGrath, which he said persuaded the court that it would be unjust to convict the accused for being drunk in charge of a vehicle.
“It would be unsafe on legal grounds to convict,” he said.
The court heard Leitch had no previous convictions, had lived in Ireland for 30 years and was still working. Mr McGrath told the judge that Leitch did charitable work for Unicef and the Cork School of Art, among others, and regretted the inconvenience caused to gardaí and the courts.
Judge McNulty said Leitch was entitled to be dealt with leniently, imposing a €500 fine and a mandatory two-year driving disqualification.
“When he was stopped by gardaí he was emitting a smell of alcohol and appeared somewhat disorientated. But significantly, he kept saying to Garda [Daniel] Quinlan, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine’,” he noted. “His [Donovan’s] inquiry was if he had damaged any property or any person and that is greatly to his credit.”
The judge said Leitch’s primary concern was for others and likened the situation to that of former US attorney general Robert Kennedy, who after being shot in 1968, asked ‘is everybody okay?’.
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