An inquest into the death of a 14-year-old boy, who was driving a car being pursued by a garda van in Killarney in Co Kerry, has returned a verdict of accidental death.<\/p>\n
Thomas Healy, of the Gap of Dunloe, died in the crash five years ago.<\/p>\n
His best friend, Alfie Barrett, who was 15 at the time, was severely injured.<\/p>\n
Alfie told the inquest that Thomas had panicked after the van, with its blue lights flashing, had pursued them on Ross Road.<\/p>\n
The last thing that he recalled was the vehicle behind them and its lights shining into the car.<\/p>\n
Alfie said they had been trying to calm each other down.<\/p>\n
Thomas “was a bit panicked … nervous and shaking,” he said.<\/p>\n
However, the driver of the van, Garda Se\u00e1n O\u2019Sullivan, said he had lost sight of the car as it rounded a bend and sped away from him.<\/p>\n
He had expected to come across the car parked and abandoned, he said, but instead found it crashed into a tree.<\/p>\n
Alfie was “mistaken” in thinking the vehicle was behind them at the time of the crash, Gda O\u2019Sullivan added.<\/p>\n
Fiosr\u00fa, then the Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na Ombudsman Commission (GSOC), launched an investigation and, in 2022, cleared Gda O\u2019Sullivan of any responsibility, it was confirmed.<\/p>\n
CCTV footage was shown to the jury.<\/p>\n
The inquest heard how, shortly before midnight on 7 July 2021, Thomas Healy picked up Alfie Barrett and the pair drove to the Tesco car park in Killarney.<\/p>\n
The two had been texting each other. They had not been wearing seat belts.<\/p>\n
The car was only used on the family farm in the Gap of Dunloe.<\/p>\n
Gda O\u2019Sullivan explained how, at around 1.05am, he was approaching Park Road roundabout and observed an old Toyota Corolla.<\/p>\n
The front-seat passenger was looking back regularly at the garda van and the digits on the registration plate appeared deliberately obscured.<\/p>\n
There was no other car on the road, he said. The vehicle travelled on to East Avenue Road and towards Muckross Road.<\/p>\n
Gda O’Sullivan activated the blue flashing light and the Corolla took off at speed through Muckross Road roundabout.<\/p>\n
“It sped away from me down Ross Road,” he said.<\/p>\n
He followed and thought it may have turned into one of the housing estates in the area.<\/p>\n
The speed was not excessive, but the garda van would be more slow moving than the car, and the vehicle was trying to get away, Gda O’Sullivan said.<\/p>\n
Evidence from forensic investigators heard how its National Car Test (NCT) certificate had expired in 2018 and almost 11,000km had been added since the test.<\/p>\n
The vehicle was roadworthy. It was in good mechanical order, its brakes and steering were good, but its tyres were old, the inquest heard.<\/p>\n
Death caused by road crash injuries – pathologist<\/p>\n
“A mechanical defect did not cause the collision,” Garda Thomas Brosnan, a public service vehicle inspector, said.<\/p>\n
A forensic vehicle inspector, Sergeant Mark O\u2019Connor, said that it was wet at the time but the road surface was good.<\/p>\n
There was no street lighting, he added, the lights of the car were probably off, and there was no evidence of braking.<\/p>\n
The driver failed to negotiate the bend, mounted the footpath and hit the tree.<\/p>\n
Thomas Healy was pronounced dead at the scene.<\/p>\n
State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster said the cause of death was due to injuries in a road crash.<\/p>\n
The Healy family’s solicitor, Dan O\u2019Connor, told the jury that it had heard conflicting evidence.<\/p>\n
He said these were young men and a member of An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na was in pursuit “to some degree”.<\/p>\n
However, Coroner Aisling Quilter objected when he attempted to address the verdicts the jury might consider.<\/p>\n
She said that misadventure, accidental, narrative or open verdicts were their options.<\/p>\n
After retiring, the jurors returned a unanimous verdict of accidental death.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An inquest into the death of a 14-year-old boy, who was driving a car being pursued by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":562778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-562777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","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\/562777","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=562777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/562777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/562778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=562777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=562777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=562777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}