A drunken 15-year-old juvenile whose dangerous driving in a stolen car caused the death of his cousin was sentenced at Galway Circuit Criminal Court yesterday to four years' detention, with the last two suspended.
The juvenile, who pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death and to stealing a car, had been on compassionate leave from Oberstown Detention Centre to attend a family funeral.
He went on a two-day drinking binge which culminated in the theft of a car and the fatal accident at 11.40 p.m. on June 16th last year at Menlo, on the outskirts of Galway city.
The youth had been due to return to Oberstown that day where he is serving a two-year sentence for 39 offences, including nine car thefts.
Other passengers in the car included his dead cousin, who sat in the back, and a front-seat passenger, Mr Thomas Folan (19), Mervue, Galway.
The dead youth was thrown from the car and suffered multiple injuries when the car, which was being driven without headlights, crashed on an unlit, narrow road at Menlo near the city. The other youths ran away from the scene.
The juvenile who had been driving was arrested the following morning by gardaí who went to his home and found him covered in blood in his bedroom.
He had suffered a severe gash to his arm in the accident and, according to Det Sgt Gerry Roche, could have lost the limb but for medical intervention.
A Western Health Board social worker, Mr John Ross, said the juvenile had been before the courts since the age of nine.
It was recommended then that he be placed in residential care and receive specialist treatment and education, but that never took place.