An 84-year-old woman has been given a two-year suspended sentence and banned from driving for 15 years after her driving caused the death of a young soccer player near Castlebar, Co Mayo, last year.
At a sentencing hearing at the Circuit Criminal Court in Castlebar on Friday, Judge Raymond McCabe said Mary O'Malley, of Gortawarla, Newport, Co Mayo, should not be driving and that he would be failing in his duty if he allowed her to resume driving after the minimum mandatory four-year period of disqualification for such incidents.
Ms O'Malley, a retired primary schoolteacher, was the driver of a car which crashed into Melissa Patterson (18), of Hollow Grove, Castlebar, while she was walking on the hard shoulder of the N60 at Breaffy on July 30th, 2015.
Ms O’Malley pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death when she appeared before the Circuit Criminal Court last June.
At Friday's hearing, Garda John Melia said that Melissa was hit by a Ford Focus car driven by the defendant and was thrown over a fence into a shallow drain.
Bernard Madden, counsel for Ms O'Malley, read from a statement she made to gardaí in the aftermath of the accident, in which she said she was distressed and heartbroken over what had happened.
Ms O’Malley said that she had been returning from Knock Shrine on the evening of the accident with two relatives.
In a victim impact statement, Melissa’s mother Carmel described her daughter as “beautiful, loving, sporting, with her whole life ahead of her.
“Sometimes I can’t breathe when thinking of the enormity of what has happened to my family,” she said.