A DRIVER who left his dying friend in a car which he crashed after consuming up to eight drinks has been jailed for four years by Judge Frank O’Donnell in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.
Paul Warner (24) was doing “handbrake turns” in the Phoenix Park late at night when his car crashed into a metal fence and one of the rails fatally impaled 16-year-old Mark Carroll who was in the passenger seat.
Warner pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death on Wellington Road in the park.
Garda Sgt Aidan Hannon told prosecuting counsel Noel Devitt that in the early hours of April 8th, 2008, Warner, of North Circular Road, Dublin, was showing the victim a car he was planning to sell to him.
Witness Soracha Scanlon told gardaí she heard tyres squealing and an engine revving and saw a car go “screaming past”. When she was leaving the park she saw the car at a fence with its doors open. She alerted gardaí before she looked inside the car and found the body of Mr Carroll.
Gardaí found documents in the car addressed to Warner. The next day they called to his house and arrested him. He told gardaí he was out drinking that day and had up to eight bottles and pints. He admitted he was driving dangerously and was going at 50mph when he lost control of the car.
He said he released his seat belt and tried to release Mr Carroll’s but “it was stuck”. He claimed Mr Carroll was conscious and told him to go. He fled from the park, stopping someone along the way to ask them to call an ambulance.
Garda Sgt Hannon said Warner was very co-operative and “shouldered all the blame”.
Defence counsel Patrick Marrinan SC read out a letter written by his client apologising to Mr Carroll’s family and saying he “would have done everything differently”. He said Warner wished he had died in the crash and has since contemplated suicide several times.
Judge O’Donnell acknowledged Warner’s remorse and suspended the final two years of the sentence.