A €1,500 fine was too lenient a penalty for a truck driver whose careless driving caused the death of a three-year-old girl, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
The three-judge court today imposed a 16-month sentence on 64-year-old Senan O Flaherty but suspended the entire term on condition that he be of good behaviour for two years.
The court found that the trial judge was wrong to place O Flaherty s culpability at the lower end of the scale with Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy saying he was at the upper end and that his blameworthiness was more significant than that identified by the judge.
A €1,500 fine was too lenient a penalty for a truck driver whose careless driving caused the death of a three-year-old girl, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
The three-judge court today imposed a 16-month sentence on 64-year-old Senan O Flaherty but suspended the entire term on condition that he be of good behaviour for two years.
The court found that the trial judge was wrong to place O Flaherty s culpability at the lower end of the scale with Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy saying he was at the upper end and that his blameworthiness was more significant than that identified by the judge.
A truck driver who was fined €1,500 for careless driving that caused the death of three-year-old girl should have been given a custodial sentence, the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has told the Court of Appeal.
Estlin Wall was just days away from her fourth birthday when she was killed in an accident which caused serious bodily harm to her father, Vincent Wall, at Ballyea South, Inagh, Co Clare, on March 15, 2017.
Arising from the crash, Senan O Flaherty (64) of Lower Gowerhass, Cooraclare, pleaded guilty to careless driving causing death and careless driving causing serious bodily harm.
At a sentence hearing last year Judge Gerald Keys fined O Flaherty €750 in respect of each charge and banned him from driving for four years, the shortest ban allowed under the statute. Judge Keys said O Flaherty had a low culpability in causing the tragedy.