A motorist who caused a crash in which a Cork pensioner and pilgrim was killed while travelling to Lough Derg has been fined €350 at Trim Circuit Court.
At the end of a two-day trial, the jury found Jerome Fagan, a retired farmer, of the Moy, Summerhill, Co Meath, not guilty of dangerous driving causing death but guilty of careless driving.
John O'Byrne (73), Lucy Place, Passage West, was a passenger in a friend's car when it was struck by Mr Fagan's Land Rover Discovery vehicle and sent into the path of an oncoming juggernaut on the N3, the main Dublin-Navan road, in August 2005.
The incident happened at a busy junction, known locally as the Black Bull, as Mr Fagan attempted to turn right across both lanes on to the southbound lane.
Mary Hardigan, who was driving in the northbound lane to Lough Derg, told the court she saw the vehicle at the exit on to the N3 and thought it was going to stop, but "then he just came out in front of me". The bull bars sent her car into a spin and the passenger side struck the juggernaut in the southbound lane.
The court heard the Land Rover had been waiting in a line of traffic to join the N3. An engineer told the court that motorists had a three-second opportunity to make a right-hand turn.
In a statement to gardaí Mr Fagan, who has been driving for 53 years, said he recalled seeing cars and a lorry coming from the Navan direction and the next thing he remembered was "being hit by a car". He said it had "bounced" off the bull bars.
Judge Michael O'Shea said it was a tremendously difficult junction at which to emerge. At the stop line motorists were required to nudge out. He put it down as a "minor error of judgment in respect of how the accident occurred". Mr Fagan had no previous convictions, he was genuinely remorseful and was unlikely to come to the attention of the courts again. It was at the minor end of the scale in relation to careless driving, he added, and was not an appropriate case for a custodial or suspended sentence or a disqualification.
Afterwards Ms Hardigan said she had not wanted Mr Fagan to go to jail, but "I feel aggrieved the judge reduced John's life to the minor end of carelessness".