A motorist caught speeding seven times in a four-month period had all of his fixed-charge tickets “terminated”, according to a list of 20 sample cases released by four TDs yesterday.
And a superintendent quashed up to 70 tickets and falsified and destroyed records to “hide his wrong-doing”.
The 20 samples were from a dossier of thousands of quashed offences put together by two Garda whistleblowers. Though the dossier could not be released for legal reasons, the list, which did not include names, locations or exact dates, was released by Clare Daly, Mick Wallace, Joan Collins and Luke Flanagan.
In six of the samples, motorists who had speeding offences quashed by gardaí were later involved in fatal crashes. In a seventh, a motorist who was killed in 2010 had had a case of driving without reasonable consideration quashed six months earlier. And a motorist who knocked down a pedestrian had previously had a speeding ticket terminated.
A solicitor caught speeding had the ticket terminated by a Garda inspector with the reason “en route to court with pros files. Urgent case”. And a Garda inspector found breaking a red light had his ticket terminated with the reason “Garda inspector”. In another case a speeding motorist had a ticket quashed for “family bereavement”. A month later he was caught again and a ticket was quashed with the excuse “film unusable”, yet motorists caught in the same location and on the same camera within minutes had to pay fines and got penalty points.
Another motorist was caught speeding on three occasions in the same month and all three tickets were quashed by the same garda with the reason “offender genuinely mistook the limits”. And a motorist caught with a mobile phone in one year, no tax and speeding in other years had tickets quashed by the same garda; he had a “genuine excuse”.
Garda reasons for quashing tickets
*Philanthropic benevolence
* Offender genuinely mistook the limits
* Genuine excuse
* Confusion over signage
* Received call that house had been burgled
* Medication for elderly parents
* Pregnancy issue
* A&E nurse
* Member going to court
* Meeting garda
* Motorist accepts garda advice
FIONA GARTLAND
