Court told driver who crashed into pier of Limerick home wrote note but left the scene

A KERRYMAN who crashed into the pier at the entrance to a house in Athea was not trying “to avoid detection” when he left the area, his solicitor Brendan Aherne said at Newcastle West court.

“He should have remained at the scene to meet the gardai. He didn’t do so,” Mr Aherne continued. “His brackets went, he crashed and left a handwritten note on the windscreen.”

Patrick O’Connell of Arlington Lodge, Tralee was charged with failing to give information and driving a car and damaging property not his own at Gortnagross, Athea on August 18, 2020.

Garda William McElligott told the court that on that date, he responded to a road traffic incident where he was told a car had hit the pier of a house and then left.

The damage to pier was minor, the garda said. “A later patrol came upon Mr O’Connor walking away from the scene to Carrigkerry,” he said.

Pleading for his client, Mr Aherne said he had been arrested by Garda McElligott and had given a blood sample which turned up nothing.

“That wasn’t the issue,” he said. He asked Judge Carol Ann Cooligan not to disqualify him.

The judge adjourned the case to May 19 to allow a probation report to be drawn up.