THE TEENAGER charged with causing the death of Garda Robbie McCallion in Co Donegal, when he struck the garda with his car while trying to escape from a Garda road block, has been jailed for seven years.
Jamie McGrenaghan (19), of Gortnathraw, Cashel, Kerrykeel, had pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing the death of Garda McCallion in Letterkenny on March 26th, 2009.
On Friday last week, McGrenaghan was found not guilty of the manslaughter of Garda McCallion and had been returned for sentence at yesterday’s sitting.
The overall details of the trial were recounted by Sgt Michael Finan before Judge John O’Hagan decided upon a sentence. The court heard how McGrenaghan and Cathal Dunleavy went to Tara Court to steal a car during the early hours of March 26th, 2009.
The men had been drinking but tests found McGrenaghan was not over the legal limit despite claiming during Garda interviews he was drunk during the incident.
Gardaí in a patrol car arrived as the pair were stopped while trying to get away from the cul-de-sac housing estate. The gardaí blocked the men’s escape route by putting their patrol car across the road.
McGrenaghan reversed his Peugeot car back nearly 100m before accelerating at the gardaí and swerving away to the left at the last second.
The then 17-year-old claimed that he had spotted a gap between the patrol car and a wall, which was measured later to be almost nine feet wide, which he “went for”.
Gardaí said they could hear the screeching of tyres as McGrenaghan took off towards them. He struck the patrol car and the stolen Toyota Corolla car, throwing Garda McCallion five metres up into the air.
The garda received a serious head injury and died almost two weeks later at Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital.
Denis Vaughan Buckley, for McGrenaghan, said his client pleaded guilty at the earliest possible time to dangerous diving causing death and the unlawful taking of a car. He said McGrenaghan had been with Cathal Dunleavy – a man who had 45 convictions – and said that McGrenaghan was very much under his powers.
Judge O’Hagan said the matter was a very serious offence and he considered it on the upper scale of gross negligence. He sentenced McGrenaghan to seven years for dangerous driving causing death and suspended the last year of the sentence. He further sent him to prison for three years for stealing a car and five years for the reckless endangerment of Garda Joanne Doherty and Garda Shane Lavelle when he drove at them.
He also sentenced him to three years for each of eight burglary and criminal damage charges at a caravan park which McGrenaghan had previously pleaded guilty to. McGrenaghan was disqualified from driving for life. All sentences are to run concurrently.