A MAN was killed just hours before his wedding when a telephone pole smashed through the front windscreen of a car and into his head, a Limerick court heard.
Groom-to-be Myles ‘Miley’ Harty (20), from Askeaton, was fatally injured while travelling as a front-seat passenger in a Skoda Octavia driven by his best man and cousin, Shane Harty.
The car left the Askeaton to Rathkeale road, becoming airborne after striking a wall before colliding with a ditch and a pole, between midnight and 1am on August 21, 2021.
Myles Harty, whose son Miley was born a few months after he died, suffered catastrophic head injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The harrowing evidence of the fatal collision, as well as emotional victim impact statements written by the deceased’s parents and fiancée, Kate Quilligan, were shared at Shane Harty’s sentencing hearing on Monday.
Prosecuting barrister Lilly Buckley said that the force of the inverted car crashing into the telephone pole was such that the pole “broke at its base and travelled through the car and impacted on the head of Myles Harty”.
Shane Harty, of Tola Park, Shannon, County Clare, was initially charged with one count of dangerous driving causing Mr Harty’s death, however a week prior to his trial the State accepted a guilty plea offered by the defendant to one count of a lesser offence of careless driving causing Mr Harty’s death, which carries a sentence of a maximum of two years in jail and a €10,000 fine.
The collision occurred as Shane and Myles Harty, and another cousin Daniel Harty, were traveling in Shane Harty’s car after the three close relatives had been shopping in Limerick City as part of their final preparations for Myles Harty’s wedding to Ms Quilligan.
It was a road the three men had regularly travelled at night, Ms Buckley said.
Following the collision, Shane Harty admitted to Gardaí he had been speeding and “showing off” shortly before the crash.
When Gardaí put it to Shane Harty that “there is no doubt that at the time you lost control of the car you were speeding”, he agreed and replied, “no doubt”.
Shane Harty told Gardaí he regretted “everything” and would have driven “a lot slower” if he had the opportunity to go back in time.
Ms Buckley said a forensic collision investigator who examined the scene had not been able to determine the exact pre-collision speed of the car, but was of the view that the circumstances “strongly suggested that it was traveling above the speed limit of 80km/h”.
The car eventually came to a stop on its roof, 22.9 metres from where it left the road.
A postmortem report said Myles Harty suffered “non-survivable” head injuries after sustaining “multiple complex facial and skulls fractures” when the telephone poll smashed into his head.
‘He never got the chance to celebrate his special day’
Kate Quilligan and members of her late fiancé’s family wept in court as impact statements were read by Ms Buckley, herself fighting back years.
“Every morning I wake up I relive the nightmare of that day. It will never leave my mind,” Ms Quillivan’s statement read.
“It should have been the happiest day of my life … It has shattered so many lives and robbed our son, Miley, of his father.”
Margaret and Myles Harty Snr wrote that “things will never be the same” after their son’s sudden death.
“Myles was preparing for his wedding day, but he never got the chance to celebrate his special day.
“He went out that night and told us, ‘I’ll be back in five minutes’, but he never returned.”
Shane Harty’s barrister, senior counsel Brian McInerney, asked sentencing judge Colin Daly to consider a number of mitigating factors in his judgement.
Mr McInerney said Shane Harty was genuinely remorseful, had no previous convictions, had a clean driver’s licence, had cooperated with Gardaí, and had no traces of alcohol or drugs in his system at the time of the collision.
“Whatever sentence is imposed by the court, he has a heavy burden. He is already serving a life sentence of that burden every waking moment of his life,” Mr McInerney said.
Judge Daly said he needed more time to consider his sentence, and remanded Shane Harty on continuing bail to appear before for final judgement on November 25.
