A judge spoke yesterday of the "breathtaking arrogance" of Ms Audrey Flynn, daughter of the former EU commissioner, Mr Padraig Flynn, who was in court on charges concerning the operation of a school bus service without proper insurance.
Judge Mary Devins, in Castlebar District Court, was referring to the evidence given by Ms Flynn (31), who faces a series of motoring charges. She adjourned sentencing to allow a psychological or psychiatric report be carried out on Ms Flynn.
Judge Devins said she believed that Ms Flynn, of Manor Village, Castlebar, who was accompanied in court by her father, had attempted to mislead the court, and perhaps even her solicitor, Mr Pat Moran, in her evidence.
Mr Moran said Ms Flynn was not in receipt of payment for carrying the children on June 18th and that was the strength of the defence on the "no insurance" charge.
Referring to Ms Flynn's partner, Mr Mark Winters, an agricultural contractor, who was also before the court, Mr Moran said: "This couple got involved in this venture. They were ill-prepared and were never properly organised for it."
In her summation, Judge Devins said of Ms Flynn: "I find her attitude is one of complete breathtaking arrogance and a failure to acknowledge and appreciate the reality and gravity of the situation she is facing.
"I am so concerned by the latter that I really feel I need a professional opinion from an appropriate medical person before I pass judgment, because I have never come across an attitude such as I have seen today in court. I mean here a psychologist or psychiatrist."
She adjourned the case for mention on February 2nd to allow for the medical report, and she adjourned sentencing until March. Ms Flynn was appearing before the court for sentencing following a previous hearing of a case against her last December involving 22 motoring offences.
These related primarily to her providing a school bus service to national school pupils in a van she had bought for £500 and which she had not insured for public service purposes. Mr Winters was also summonsed on these offences.
At that hearing, Judge Devins said it was such a serious matter that she was considering imposing a prison sentence. She adjourned the case until this month.
It emerged, however, at Castlebar Court yesterday, that eight additional motoring offences summonses, concerning a road traffic accident on June 18th last, were also pending against Ms Flynn.
The accident, at Saleen, Castlebar, occurred when Ms Flynn's Mercedes car, which she had insured for private use only and which was parked on a kerb, was hit from behind by a vehicle.
The most serious of the charges involves the driving without appropriate insurance or licence, a vehicle being used as a public service vehicle.
In evidence, Ms Flynn denied that three children she had been transporting in the car at the time were being driven for financial gain.
However, Ms Rita Callon, of Saleen, Castlebar, and Ms Breege McManamon, of Lakeshore Drive, Castlebar, whose children were being dropped off from the car that afternoon, said in evidence that it was the practice for them on a Monday morning to pay £37 to either Ms Flynn or Mr Winters for the service of collecting and delivering each of their children to and from the school. Ms Callon said the board of management at Ballyheane National School, which her daughter was attending, had contracted Ms Flynn to carry out the school run from January to June 1999. The board constituted parents of children at the school.
Ms McManamon said she used to pay either Ms Flynn or Mr Winters "with money in a brown envelope every Monday".
In evidence, Ms Flynn said that she had received a phone call on the day, she could not remember from whom, asking her to do the Ballyheane school run.
"I left my place of business and picked the children up and brought them home. I was operating a school run at the time, but to Errew National School, not Ballyheane National School."
Replying to her solicitor, Mr Moran, Ms Flynn said she had never been involved in a school run for the children in Ballyheane and that she had never been engaged by that school.
She said Ms Callon was incorrect in stating that she had paid her £7 that week because she did not do that run and did not transport Ms Callon's child.
"Mrs Callon was never at the house when I would leave her daughter at the gate."
Judge Devins asked how could Ms Flynn state Ms Callon was never there when she was claiming she was not providing a service to Ms Callon's daughter. Ms Flynn replied that the June 18th service was a once-off. She subsequently added she might have ferried Ms Callon's children three times and, in further evidence, said it may have been on five or six occasions.
A 10-minute recess of the case was then called by Judge Devins, who appealed to Ms Flynn's solicitor to take time to talk with his client, as things were getting "cloudier and murkier by the second".
When the hearing resumed, Mr Moran said that March-April 1999, Ms Flynn and her partner were experiencing difficulties in the business and had decided to get out of it.
Continuing her evidence, Ms Flynn said the Ballyheane school run was from then on taken over by several drivers.
In reply to Judge Devins, she amended her denial of ever having provided the service but said it had never been contracted to her, but through Mr Winters.
Under cross-examination, she said she was not saying that the two prosecuting witnesses had been lying in their claim that they paid her money personally.
"I am just saying she did not hand it to me on a Monday. On one occasion I accept she handed me money for a service that was provided to bring her children from school.
"I did not do the run on a continuous basis, but at the behest of who could not do it. I would get a call to do it."
She added that she did not realise she was driving without appropriate insurance in relation to the 22 summonses for offences mentioned at the hearing last month, which included two charges of making a false declaration to obtain insurance, and a charge of making a false declaration to obtain a public service driving licence.
Mr Winters, in evidence, said that after running into financial difficulties, he had contracted out the service to a number of drivers and had not consulted any of the parents at Ballyheane school.
He had not realised that Ms Flynn had called into a local insurance agent in Castlebar in October 1998 and asked that he be removed from insurance policies covering two of their vehicles, and that he had subsequently been driving without insurance.
On the charges against Mr Winters, which included charges for no tax, no insurance and no driving licence, the judge imposed fines totalling more than £1,000 and disqualified him from driving for three years.