Racing along on the road to Idiotsville
So, says I to myself, when Gay Byrne lost his rag - perhaps this Judge Neilan chap is away with the fairies, what with him convicting two lunatic drivers and then allowing them to keep their licences.
But no, on closer attention, it looks like Judge John Neilan was just working within the limits set by law and precedent. Which is a pity. If it was just a case of an idiot judge, we could hope that he might one day accidentally put his wig on backwards and walk under a bus, which would solve that problem.
If the judge isn't an idiot, we have a bigger problem. It's the legal system that's idiotic. It's the political establishment that's incompetent, if the law is so weak that it can't nail down two dangerous drivers with the collective brainpower of a peat briquette.
Here's the extent of the mess.
Let's start with the fools. On May 5 last, Tommy Gorman, a gobshite from Mullingar, allegedly engaged in a race with a friend, in which they did around 200kph on a public highway, driving side by side and videoing their frolics.
Mr Gorman's friend is Alberto Rizzini, who possesses a name that makes him eminently suitable for Googling. A Google search, followed by a spot of ploughing through much tedious nonsense, leads to Alberto Rizzini's page on Bebo.com. This is the website wherein teenagers tell each other how cool they are, which (I seem to remember) is what 90 per cent of being a teenager is about.
Mr Rizzini is 23. His fellow gobshite, Tommy Gorman, is 34.
Mr Rizzini's Bebo page says his favourite "muvies" [sic] are "Black Hookdown [sic] - Finding Forester - Bautiful [sic] Mind - ecc [sic again]".
In a photo section of his Bebo page, Mr Rizzini displays his "collection of cars", some belonging to him, some to others. They include the Lancia, in which he indulged in his dangerous driving. Mr Rizzini told Bebo that he loves "anything that involves speed". We'll come back to Bebo in a moment.
When the dangerous driving case came to court last June, there were three charges. Rizzini and Gorman's lawyer told the court that a plea was being offered on one of the charges. If the case were to go on, he said, certain constitutional matters would have to be decided.
As far as I can see, from reports, Rizzini and Gorman were offering to plead guilty to one aspect of the charges. And they were notifying the police and DPP that if that plea was not accepted, the State would have to fight a constitutional case, perhaps through the High Court and into the Supreme Court.
Judge Neilan adjourned the case to last week, to allow the police to consider the plea.
In a Bebo message to a friend, within days of being charged, Mr Rizzini suggested the friend should "keep TV on the 1st of June". He said there was a "load of shit that I have to deal with". June 1 was the date Mr Rizzini's case was first heard in Mullingar District Court. In a more recent message to another Bebo friend, Mr Rizzini suggested that on September 14 she should "have the radio on or RTE ok". (September 14 was the day last week on which Rizzini appeared in court to finish dealing with his "load of shit".)
Mr Rizzini, in other words, seems not to have been too upset at the prospect of having his dangerous driving charges broadcast to the nation.
Last week, in Mullingar District Court, the State dropped two charges. Rizzini and Gorman were convicted of one charge, of dangerously driving for under a mile, on the evidence of a garda.
The two dropped charges related to the alleged racing activities recorded on the video. It was the opinion of Judge Neilan that the DPP dropped those charges because the video evidence might be inadmissible. Finding the gobshites guilty of the lesser dangerous driving charge, the only charge before him, he fined them ?2,000 each. He feared that a greater penalty would be overturned on appeal.
At some stage, someone gave a copy of the video to RTE, which broadcast it on the News. This upset Judge Neilan. So, the Garda Commissioner appointed a Chief Superintendent to investigate how RTE got the footage. Gay Byrne, chairman of the Road Safety Authority, got upset. He thinks the gobshites got off too lightly and that the leaking of the video isn't the issue.
Judge Neilan thinks a garda leaked the video footage. Certainly there has previously been suspicion of garda leaking. In the Rachel O'Reilly case, notorious leaking turned the savage murder of a young woman into a soap opera sideshow for the tabloids. It also jeopardised the chances of a prosecution and unfairly smeared an identifiable suspect who may be totally innocent.
And no one appointed a Chief Super to look into that.
Judge Neilan was upset at the possibility that a garda might have leaked evidence from a police file in relation to a charge not before the court. Well, perhaps the garda - if it was a garda - took the example of Minister for Justice Michael McDowell, who recently leaked material from a police case that was still open.
The minister believed the leak was in the public interest. The garda - if it was a garda who leaked the video footage - may have had the same motivation. It may not have been a garda who leaked the tape. Perhaps there was more than one copy. Perhaps it was leaked by someone who thought we should all see what great drivers these two are.
The fact that the time and energy of a Chief Superintendent, and who knows how many other gardai, is being spent on this issue is no surprise. We may not take due process all that seriously in cases involving murder or alleged passport fraud, but we are scrupulous about the rights of gobshite drivers.
Judge Neilan's ?2,000 fine was high. Very serious dangerous driving often attracts fines of just a few hundred. Neither the courts nor the Oireachtas have developed the law to meet the enormity of the problem.
If I recklessly fire a licensed 'The law is so weak that it can't nail down two dangerous drivers with the collective brainpower of a peat briquette'
firearm in a public street, I probably won't kill anyone. But I'll face serious charges, the gun will be confiscated and I probably won't be allowed to own one again. In Ireland, very few people die from gunshot wounds. Hundreds die from speeding cars.
The law should and could be simple. Abuse it - lose it. Use your car to endanger others, it's taken away, along with your licence, permanently. Just like if you abuse a gun licence.
Effective laws won't be developed. Politicians would fear the backlash from gobshite drivers. Besides, like Mr Rizzini, they like speed. Minister Micheal Martin was caught speeding. And Minister Noel Treacy. And John O'Donoghue's car was clocked at almost 100mph when he was Minister for Justice. When Bertie Ahern was questioned about breaking the speed limit, he made a joke of it.
The gobshites get the message. Ha ha. Risking other people's lives is no big deal. And the law is a "load of shit".
- Gene Kerrigan
