{"id":490305,"date":"2026-06-09T08:33:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T08:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/490305\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T08:33:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T08:33:10","slug":"judge-demands-progress-in-donegal-checkpoint-drugs-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/490305\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge demands progress in Donegal checkpoint drugs case"},"content":{"rendered":"

A District Court judge said there needs to be progress in the case of a man caught with a quantity of drugs after turning away from a checkpoint in Donegal.<\/p>\n

Judge Emile Daly has urged progress in the case of Dean Beattie, who appeared via video link at Letterkenny District Court.<\/a><\/p>\n

Beattie has been in custody since his arrest on April 18 and has been charged with a series of offences relating to an incident at Mannerstown Crossroads, Bunnamayne, Bridgend.<\/p>\n

The 33-year-old, of Glenvale Road in Derry, was arrested after being pursued by Gardai when he turned away from a checkpoint in the Bridgend area.<\/p>\n

A quantity of illegal drugs and cash were seized in the operation and Beattie was also charged with offences including dangerous driving and drug-driving.<\/p>\n

Beattie was charged that he had unlawfully in his possession a controlled drug, namely cannabis, contrary to section 27 (1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977, as substituted by section 6 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1984.<\/p>\n

Beattie was also charged with dangerous driving, contrary to section 53 (1) of the Road Traffic Act 1961, as substituted by section 4 of the Road Traffic (No.2) Act, 2011.<\/p>\n

The defendant was also charged with driving while under the influence of an intoxicant, a charge contrary to section 4 (1) and (5) of the Road Traffic Act 2010.<\/p>\n

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Beattie was also charged with driving without insurance and driving without a license.<\/p>\n

When the matter came before Letterkenny District Court<\/a>, Beattie\u2019s solicitor, Mr Patsy Gallagher, said there needed to be \u201csome urgency\u201d as his client has been in custody for some time now.<\/p>\n

Sergeant Maurice Doyle said that there are still reports outstanding, including from Forensic Science Ireland, in the case. Sergeant Doyle said the State was seeking for a further remand.<\/p>\n

Address the court, Beattie asked if the matter could be dealt with and added: \u201cI\u2019m pleading guilty\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Gallagher asked for the case to be marked peremptory against the State and added that his client was anxious to deal with the matter.<\/p>\n

Sergeant Doyle said that FSI have been informed that Beattie is in custody and said that this \u201cis a priority case with FSI\u201d.<\/p>\n

Judge Daly said these were serious matters and adjourned the case until July 6.<\/p>\n

Judge Daly said: \u201cI expect progress. I will not mark it peremptory now but there really needs to be progress.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A District Court judge said there needs to be progress in the case of a man caught with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":490306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,60,43],"class_list":["post-490305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490305","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=490305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/490305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/490306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=490305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=490305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=490305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}