A MAN found guilty of dangerous driving causing the death of a former inter-county hurler has been sentenced to five years in prison, with the last 18 months suspended.
At Wicklow Circuit Criminal Court in Bray, Co Wicklow, Anthony Leahy, an unemployed man of Vartry Heights, Roundwood, Wicklow, was taken into custody after Judge Michael O’Shea handed down the sentence.
The maximum prison term under the offence is 10 years.
Leahy knocked down and killed George Johnson, a popular local sportsman, on November 4th, 2007, on the main street in Roundwood after a night out with his partner.
At his court hearing last December, Leahy was found guilty by a jury of six men and six women of dangerous driving causing death. He had already pleaded guilty to two other charges – driving with excessive amounts of alcohol in his system and to driving with no insurance.
In a victim impact statement read to the court, Anne Breen, a sister of the deceased, recalled her brother as a man who was the sibling the rest of his four sisters and four brothers turned to for support.
A respected roofer, the former inter-county hurler was a “warm, charming and outgoing” man who knew everybody in his village of Roundwood.
“The truth is we are not coping with his loss . . . it is easy to pretend we are okay. Each of us are struggling to accept his death and the way he died,” she said.
In sentencing, Judge O’Shea took into account Leahy’s remorse and the fact he had engaged with an addiction clinic over alcohol abuse and had also attended counselling.
He said it was obvious Leahy did not go out with the intention of injuring a man while driving but said there was “a substantial amount of fault” involved.