Laois postman fined €2,500 and banned from driving for three years
Image for illustration purposes
A POSTMAN was disqualified from driving when he was convicted of drink-driving at last week’s sitting of Portlaoise District Court.
Padraic Lalor (32) The Square, Ballinakill pleaded not guilty to the offence, which allegedly took place on Abbeyleix Road, Portlaoise on 12 October last.
Garda Ailish O’Sullivan said she had been on mobile patrol duty on the night when she saw a car pull out from a parking space and collide with a bollard in the middle of the road. She stopped the car, spoke with the driver and observed that his eyes were glassy and his speech slurred.
Garda O’Sullivan said that when she asked him to blow into the Drager roadside breath testing machine, that Mr Lalor “made three attempts and sucked the straw on his last attempt. When I asked for his full details, he was unable to give them to me because his speech was so slurred. He was unable to string two sentences together.” When taken to the garda station, he provided a breath sample reading of 69mg of alcohol to 100ml of breath.
Garda Peter Bergin, who conducted the breath test in the garda station on the Evidenzer breath testing machine, said that Mr Lalor kept asking him ‘can we squash this. Can we squash this because I’m a postman.’ Barrister for the defendant, Michael Daly, said that the Abbeyleix Road is 2.4 kilometres in length, stretching from the town centre to the Togher roundabout and that no specific location had been given for the stop in garda O’Sullivan’s evidence.
The barrister said that the original test result copy from the Evidenzer had not been produced in evidence but rather a copy of it and, as such, should not have been entered as evidence.
However, Judge Andrew Cody said that in relation to the copy of the Evidenzer result being not sufficient evidence, that that issue had been overruled in a test case and can be submitted as evidence. He also said that he was satisfied with the evidence of the stated location of the garda stop “whether it is 2.5 km long or not, it doesn’t matter,” he said.
Mr Daly said that a conviction would have major implications for his client’s, who had no previous convictions, employment.
Judge Cody went on to convict Mr Lalor of the offence fined him €2,500 and disqualified him from driving for three years.
He went on to fix recognisance in the event that Mr Lalor wished to appeal against the sentence.
