A DRIVER who Gardaí found had tested positive for cocaine use was banned from driving for a total of five years and fined €1,000 by a court in Limerick.
Pleading guilty to the offence in Newcastle West District Court was Robbie Flynn, of 6 Roches Road, Rathkeale, County Limerick.
The court heard evidence that when Mr Flynn was stopped by Gardaí on November 27, swabs of his saliva and blood samples tested positive for cocaine.
The accused was also before the courts being prosecuted for driving without insurance on the same date.
Judge Carol Anne Coolican heard that Mr Flynn had four previous convictions for driving offences but that these dated back to 2015.
A solicitor acting for Mr Flynn said that his client is “a young man who lives with his mother and she needs his help. He is always there for her.”
The solicitor continued that “on the night he was stopped, he was driving his mother’s car. He was under the impression that he was insured, as she had said she would put him on the insurance, but she had not yet done so.”
Judge Coolican disqualified Mr Flynn from driving for a year for driving under the influence of the drug and fined him a total of €1,000.
For driving with no insurance, Judge Coolican disqualified Mr Flynn for a further four years and imposed a jail sentence of two months. However the judge suspended the prison sentence for a period of two years.
