Five months jail for banned driver stopped for driving without insurance
A BANNED driver stopped for driving without insurance has been sentenced to five months in prison.
Aidan O’Toole was given the sentence and an eight-year disqualification at Blanchardstown District Court after Judge Gerard Jones heard he had been stopped driving twice.
Blanchardstown District Court
O’Toole, aged 34, with an address at Cherryorchard Meadows, Ballyfermot, pleaded guilty to having no insurance while driving at St Cuthbert’s Road, Clondalkin on July 10, 2020 and on the M7 in Clondalkin on March 7 this year.
The court heard gardai stopped him on St Cuthbert’s Road when they saw him holding a mobile phone. When asked to produce his licence, he told them he had left it at home, but gardai checked and discovered he was a disqualified driver.
The accused had previous convictions for driving without insurance. At a previous hearing, Judge David McHugh had indicated he would sentence O’Toole but the case had been adjourned for compassionate reasons as the accused’s fourth child had been born.
Solicitor Lorraine Stephens, defending, asked Judge Jones not to imprison O’Toole, but to consider his suitability for community service. She said he accepted had a very bad history and had made a series of grave errors of judgement that led to his conviction record. Judge Jones imposed the five-month sentence that had been indicated previously, and banned O’Toole from driving for eight years.
