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Wicklow man must stand trial for road death, judge rules
21 February 2010 By Kieron Wood
A Wicklow man is to stand trial for dangerous driving causing death after he knocked down and killed a former intercounty hurler.
AnthonyLeahy,35,of Vartry Heights, Roundwood, asked the High Court to stop his trial on a charge of killing George Johnson, 41. Leahy claimed that the destruction of evidence meant his trial could not be fair.
Johnson died after being hit by Leahy’s car in Roundwood at around 9.30pm on November 4, 2007. Leahy’s girlfriend, Ceri Boucher, said that she and Leahy had ‘‘a few drinks’’ at a bar in Roundwood, then drove ‘‘carefully’’ out of town at 25 mph. As they passed the Roundwood Hotel, she saw two men walking along the road, one of whom was ‘‘staggering/ swaying, and appeared drunk’’.
Boucher said she turned to Leahy and said: ‘‘It looks like they had a good night’’, and then one man stumbled off the pavement, hit the wing of the car and landed on the bonnet.
‘‘It all happened so fast there was no time to brake, scream or warn Anthony," she said.
Leahy told gardaí he had been driving at between 25 and 35 kph when he felt an impact on the left-hand side of the car.
Other witnesses spoke of hearing a car ‘‘flying down the town’’, then ‘‘a massive bang’’.
Closed-circuit TV cameras showed Leahy’s car travelling at approximately 72 kph in a 50 kph zone, and there was extensive damage to the front of his car.
Leahy was arrested for drink-driving after a breath test showed more than twice the legal level of alcohol in his blood. Johnson had drunk about four times the legal limit for driving, but there was no suggestion that he intended to drive that night.
Last March, Leahy’s solicitors asked to inspect the car. It had been removed in January 2008 from the private yard where gardaí had placed it for storage. Parts had been sold off without Garda authorisation, and the car had been stripped to its shell, with only one back tyre remaining.
The defence said it had not been proved that tyre marks on the road belonged to Leahy’s vehicle, and the stripping of his car and disappearance of the tyres severely prejudiced his ability to fairly mount a case.
Mr Justice Peter Charleton said that the defence might produce evidence that the tyre marks had been on the road for some time beforehand. But he said it was up to Leahy to prove that any fault in the gathering and preservation of evidence would pose a real risk that he would not get a fair trial.
Despite the video evidence, there were differing accounts about the car’s speed. ‘‘It is difficult to see how the maximum speed legally allowed could be justified on a dark night on the main street of a rural town," said the judge, but he added that it was for the jury to resolve issues of credibility.
The prosecution had provided a comprehensive report on the condition of the vehicle, and there was a presumption that the trial judge would rule on the admissibility of evidence and would give the jury appropriate warnings about evidence.
The judge said the people of Ireland were entitled to have prosecutions brought in their name where reasonable evidence existed about the commission of a crime.
‘‘The power of the High Court to prohibit such a trial should be exercised sparingly," he said.
‘‘That jurisdiction must be exercised, however, where it is established that there is a real risk that an accused person could not obtain a fair trial by reason of the disappearance of evidence."
But he said that, overall, the unavailability of the two tyres was not sufficient to prove that there was a real possibility that Leahy could not obtain a fair trial.
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