Photograph Liam Burke/Press 22
A LIMERICK man who was jailed over a fatal road crash, was left penniless after he withdrew a High Court compensation claim for injuries he suffered in the collision almost ten years ago.
Gearoid Cleary (32) of Ballinacurra Gardens was jailed for four years in 2008 for dangerous driving causing the death of 19 year-old Emma Woodland at Ballysimon Road, Limerick on September 9, 2006.
CCTV footage showed Cleary driving his Honda Integra at high speed outside Limerick Prison shortly before midnight. A 5-series BMW, driven by Latvian, Roman Andreas, was also seen traveling at high speed and in pursuit of Cleary.
A few hundred yards further on the Ballysimon Road, the BMW rear ended Cleary’s car and deflected it into a Toyota Starlet that was crossing the main road at an intersection.
Emma Woodland, a back seat passenger in the Toyota, died from head injuries sustained in the crash.
Roman Andreas fled the scene but was later prosecuted and jailed for three years when he pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing death.
Cleary contested the charge but was found guilty and jailed for four years.
Last week he took a High Court action against the Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland (MIBI) for injuries, both physical and psychological, he suffered as a result of the fatal smash.
Although injuries to his back cleared up after a few years, he said was still haunted by nightmares and felt aggrieved that he was charged and convicted for causing the crash.
He said he pulled the registration plate of the BMW from the bumper of his car where it was embedded. He denied that he was “blocking” the BMW from overtaking and that he was “dicing or racing with the car behind”.
However he admitted to Michael Gleeson SC, for the MIBI, that he was “travelling at ferocious speed”.
“I wasn’t racing anyone. If Roman Andreas says he was racing, then he is on his own with that. I certainly wasn’t racing”.
Asked what had caused the accident, he said: “If your man wasn’t drunk, it wouldn’t have happened. I accept that it was careless, but I wasn’t to blame for it all”, he said.
Accepting that he was “aggrieved” by the conviction, he added that “the jury got it wrong as did the court of criminal appeal”
Consultant engineer Tom Hayes had earlier told the court that the damage caused by the crash was the worst he had seen. Marks on the road indicated that Cleary’s Honda would not have hit the Toyota Starlet if it wasn’t rear ended by the BMW.
However, on the fourth day of evidence, Mr Justice Brian Cregan was told that Cleary wanted to withdraw his claim and that no order was to be recorded by the court.
