{"id":295860,"date":"2026-02-13T10:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T10:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295860\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T10:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T10:48:07","slug":"pharmacist-with-drugs-and-alcohol-in-system-led-high-speed-longford-car-chase-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/295860\/","title":{"rendered":"Pharmacist with drugs and alcohol in system led high-speed Longford car chase \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Circuit Court<\/a> judge has said he is \u201cnot moved by the status in the community\u201d of a Longford<\/a> pharmacist who engaged in a high-speed car chase through Longford town with significant amounts of alcohol and cocaine in his system, before crashing, exiting his vehicle and assaulting a garda<\/a> in an attempt to evade arrest.<\/p>\n

Sean Stakelum (42), with an address at Park Road, Longford, appeared at Longford Circuit Court on Thursday where he pleaded guilty to charges of dangerous driving, drug driving and drink driving, as well as resisting arrest and assaulting a garda on October 4th, 2020.<\/p>\n

During the assault, the garda received a dislocated shoulder, a fractured finger and soft tissue damage.<\/p>\n

After hearing evidence of what the defence referred to as \u201ca night of lunacy\u201d, Judge Jonathan Dunphy said the facts of the case were \u201cappalling\u201d.<\/p>\n

Sgt Gerry Newton told prosecuting counsel Stephen Falkner that Garda Barry Gillespie was the sole occupant of a marked patrol car when he observed a maroon Nissan Qashqai travelling at speed from Market Square in Longford town.<\/p>\n

Gillespie pursued the vehicle across the railway bridge and on to Park Road, then Teffia Road, to Kennedy Drive at approximately 80km per hour before turning back on to Teffia Road at an estimated 100km per hour, heading towards Dublin Road on the wrong side of the road, speeding through a red light and mounting the footpath.<\/p>\n

The vehicle continued up Dublin Road and took the right-hand turn for Deanscurragh, where the driver lost control and collided with a low-rise wall.<\/p>\n

When the driver exited the vehicle, Gillespie knew him to be Sean Stakelum, who had been playing in a county final match earlier that day and was sent off within five minutes.<\/p>\n

Stakelum resisted arrest, grabbing Gillespie and pushing him to the ground with force, dislocating his shoulder. He then took off on foot.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Cyclist \u2018convinced he would die\u2019 after being driven over by SUV making illegal turnOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Gillespie instructed him to stop resisting, but Stakelum was \u201cwild and foaming at the mouth\u201d. He struck Gillespie once on the right arm and once on the left arm and chest to force him away, and was \u201cextremely strong and aggressive\u201d.<\/p>\n

Two members of the public, who had seen the initial struggle, came to a Gillespie\u2019s aid and helped him to restrain Stakelum before Garda assistance arrived and he was conveyed to Longford Garda station<\/p>\n

A doctor was called to take a blood sample and Stakelum was found to be almost four times over the legal limit for alcohol, with cocaine also found in his system.<\/p>\n

In mitigation, defending barrister Barry White outlined that Stakelum owns a pharmacy business in the town, and has no previous convictions. He said this kind of behaviour was \u201cunacceptable\u201d, but that it was \u201ca night of lunacy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe focus of his attention on this night was not that of assault, but one of seeking to evade arrest in the knowledge that he had made a mistake and was driving in circumstances where he was over the limit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He also noted that the \u201cconsequences of the conviction in respect of the drugs may well be something that will have further repercussions for him as regards his professional body\u201d.<\/p>\n

The judge expressed his disbelief that there would be an application for the court to deal with the case in a way that allowed the defendant to avoid \u201cgoing through the custody door\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s probably advisable that I don\u2019t deal with it immediately because I\u2019m only minded to deal with it in one way,\u201d he said, indicating a custodial sentence \u201cimmediately and for a substantial period of time\u201d.<\/p>\n

Stakelum will reappear before the court next week for sentence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Circuit Court judge has said he is \u201cnot moved by the status in the community\u201d of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,13553,61,60,3181,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-295860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-circuit-court","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-longford","13":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295860","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=295860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}