A MAN has been imprisoned for 22 months and disqualified for 25 years for dangerous driving offences.
Kevin Dunleavy (24), Kerrykeel, Co Donegal, pleaded guilty to eight counts of dangerous driving in Donegal in July and August.
Dunleavy’s younger brother Cathal Dunleavy (21) was imprisoned for three years in March for unlawfully taking a car in Letterkenny on the night Garda Robert McCallion was killed.
Garda McCallion (29) died after being struck by a car while at the scene of a car theft. Cathal Dunleavy was at the scene but was not the driver of the car that struck the garda.
Judge Séamus Hughes in the district court remarked that Kevin Dunleavy had the “most auspicious number of previous convictions he had ever seen before him”.
He said Donegal was notorious for young people and their dangerous driving and he asked Dunleavy to step into the witness box. “I would like to hear from the author of his own misfortune.”
The judge called Dunleavy’s record “appalling” and, recalling the charges before the court, said: “There you go but for the grace of God, that you didn’t kill someone, a family in a car.”
Garda Mark Gannon said he saw Dunleavy driving in Carrigart on July 1st. Gardaí pursued Dunleavy, who was travelling at 120 km/h. Dunleavy took two turns on the wrong side of the road and failed to stop at a stop sign.
Gardaí pursued him across eight townlands before stopping because it was too dangerous.
On August 12th, gardaí came across the car again. Dunleavy took off, breaking the speed limit and taking bends on the wrong side of the road.
Dunleavy approach a Y-junction where he took a sharp handbrake turn, skidding on to the other side of the road. Bail was fixed at €1,000. Judge Hughes said if he could have sentenced him to 10 years he would have.