{"id":205759,"date":"2025-12-22T21:40:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-22T21:40:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/205759\/"},"modified":"2025-12-22T21:40:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T21:40:07","slug":"man-jailed-for-four-years-after-hitting-garda-with-car-and-reversing-toward-him-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/205759\/","title":{"rendered":"Man jailed for four years after hitting garda with car and reversing toward him \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man who struck a detective garda with a car and then reversed towards him as he lay injured on the ground has been jailed for 4\u00bd years, with the final six months suspended.<\/p>\n

After hitting Det Gda Shane O\u2019Neill, the defendant, Thomas Connors, reversed his car at the injured garda, who had to crawl out of the way of the Audi TT as it came towards him and rammed his Garda patrol car.<\/p>\n

Connors (40), with an address at Ballyart, Brittas, Co Limerick, and previously of Brindle Hall, Charleville, Co Cork, pleaded guilty to one count of endangerment and one count of failing to stop at the scene of a road traffic collision at Br\u00fa na Gruad\u00e1n, Castletroy, Co Limerick<\/a>, on February 10th, 2025.<\/p>\n

The prosecution entered a nolle prosequi (withdrawal) in respect of charges against Connors including that he failed to keep his car at the scene, failed to report the collision, caused criminal damage to the Garda<\/a> patrol car, and dangerous driving.<\/p>\n

The court heard Det Gda O\u2019Neill, who was on mobile patrol duty, received an alert about a silver Audi TT car suspected of being involved in a criminal offence in the Patrickswell area.<\/p>\n

When Det Gda O\u2019Neill came across the car he attempted to stop it after he got a clear view of Connors driving, as well as another man wearing a balaclava in the front passenger seat.<\/p>\n

The garda got out of his patrol car and approached the vehicle, identifying himself as a member of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Connors pleaded guilty to \u201cintentionally or recklessly driving at and ramming an official Garda patrol vehicle, causing Det Gda Shane O\u2019Neill to fall to the ground and be injured and then driving at Det Gda O\u2019Neill while he was lying on the ground and thereby created a substantial risk of death or serious harm to another\u201d.<\/p>\n

The court heard Det Gda O\u2019Neill was flung up to three metres away from where he was struck by Connors\u2019 car.<\/p>\n

Det Gda O\u2019Neill was forced \u201cto crawl out of the way\u201d of the Audi TT as Connors reversed it, ramming the patrol car, knowing he was lying injured on the ground.<\/p>\n

Connors and his accomplice sped off in the Audi travelling on the wrong side of the road and the wrong way around a roundabout.<\/p>\n

Det Gda O\u2019Neill was taken by ambulance to hospital and treated for injuries to his right shoulder and his back. The court heard he has been \u201cunable\u201d to return to duty due to his injuries.<\/p>\n

Sentencing judge Colin Daly said: \u201cThomas Connors drove purposely at Gda O\u2019Neill, creating a risk of significant injury or death.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe reversed and rammed the Garda car, he knew Gda O\u2019Neill was behind him and continued to reverse,\u201d said the judge.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe drove in the most dangerous of manners, and at great risk to children and families who were living in the [Castletroy] area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connors had previous convictions including 29 convictions for road traffic offences, robbery and burglary.<\/p>\n

Judge Daly said that anyone who \u201cweaponises cars or who use their vehicles as weapons\u201d should face a custodial sentence, and he said he was satisfied that a headline sentence of six years was appropriate in Connors\u2019 case.<\/p>\n

In mitigation, the judge said he took into consideration Connors\u2019 guilty plea, his \u201cremorse\u201d, a \u201cletter of apology\u201d, and that Connors was attending educational courses in prison in an effort to \u201crehabilitate himself\u201d while awaiting sentence.<\/p>\n

Reducing the sentence to 4\u00bd years with the final six months suspended, the judge directed that Connors engage with a probation service supervision order for 12 months after his sentence ends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who struck a detective garda with a car and then reversed towards him as he lay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":205760,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[45,42,1396,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-205759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-headlines","tag-limerick","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205759"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205759\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}