A drunk driver who broke a red light and smashed into another car, leaving a Zimbabwean refugee needing 24-hour supervision for the rest of her life, has been jailed for 18 months by Judge Michael White at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Faye Sherlock, a single mother, had no insurance and was more than three times over the legal alcohol limit when she crashed into the car on August 31st, 2002, causing Ms Yvonne Nutuhle to be flung out the rear side window. She ended up 26 feet away on the opposite side of a dual carriageway at Blackrock.
The 23-year-old Zimbabwean, who was an asylum seeker at the time but has since been granted refugee status, remains in hospital after suffering severe brain injuries in the accident. According to medical reports she will require 24-hour supervision for the rest of her life.
Sherlock (24), originally from Highland Grove, The Park, Cabinteely, but living in Bray, pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing serious bodily harm to Ms Nutuhle, and drink driving. A count of having no insurance was taken into consideration.
Judge White disqualified Sherlock from driving for 10 years but ordered that the prison warrant not be issued until August 3rd so she could make arrangements for her seven-year-old son, who, the court was told, has behavioural difficulties.
He said, "This was a seriously aggravating case of dangerous driving and despite the defence's long plea for a non-custodial sentence, the court must impose a custodial sentence.
"The sentence would be far greater but for the difficulties surrounding Ms Sherlock's son... The aggravating factors far outweigh the mitigating circumstances."
Sergeant John Burke told Mr Colm Ó Briain BL, prosecuting, witnesses described Sherlock's Daihatsu Charade driving erratically along Carysfort Avenue at 2 a.m. at the junction of Frascati Road after she had left a pub in Dalkey.
As she approached the lights, which witnesses claimed were red, she kept driving and crashed straight into the Fiat Cinquecento containing Ms Nutuhle and two friends. Investigators also discovered that Sherlock would have been driving over the 30 m.p.h. speed limit at the time.
Ms Nutuhle spent some weeks in St Vincent's Hospital before being moved to Beaumont. She was later transferred to the National Rehabilitation Hospital before returning to St Vincent's and is currently a patient in St Luke's Hospital.
Doctors have reported that she has a limited understanding of her difficulties and it is hoped that she will one day be able to walk with the assistance of just one person.
Sgt Burke agreed with Mr Adrian Mannering SC, for Sherlock, that she had been the victim of a sexual assault by a close friend three months before the accident. She had not told any of her friends, but on that night a friend of the offender had joined their group in the pub and told everybody about the incident.Sherlock had planned to stay in a friend's house that night, but she stormed out after this incident.
Garda Derek Maguire told the court that the person involved in the sexual assault had since pleaded guilty to that offence in the District Court and was given the Probation Act and ordered to pay €1600 in compensation.
Mr Mannering told the court that after the incident in the pub Sherlock "just snapped" and drove when she was in no fit state to do so.