TWO men have been jailed for 12 years and three months after they were involved in a high-speed chase on the N24 Limerick to Tipperary road, resulting in the death of an innocent motorcyclist and serious injuries to two others.
Michael Stanners (41), Pineview Gardens, Moyross, was jailed for six and half years and given a 10-year road ban after he was previously convicted of two counts of endangerment.
Another accused, Daniel Philips (35), of Crecora Avenue, Ballinacurra Weston, was jailed for five years and nine months, and given a 10-year road ban, after he pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing the death of motorcyclist Maurice Fehilly, and to dangerous driving causing serious bodily harm to motorcyclist Thomas Traynor, who subsequently died after undergoing 22 operations due to his injuries.
Phillips received a concurrent three-month sentence after he pleaded guilty to driving without insurance on the same day.
A third motorcyclist, Tom Conway, was traveling in a single file convoy along with Mr Fehilly and Mr Traynor, but escaped serious injury and attended court with the families of the two deceased men.
The three men had formed their own motorcycle group called the “Sunshiners”, which they humorously named because they never ventured out on the roads if it was raining.
The fatal collision occurred outside the village of Dromkeen, County Limerick, on January 4, 2020, on what was a fine dry day.
Sentencing Judge Sinead McMullan said Phillips was driving a Hyundai van being pursued at high speed by a group of four men, who were traveling in a Toyota Avensis car, being driven by Stanners.
During the pursuit, one of the men in the car driven by Stanners leaned out of the vehicle and struck Phillips’ van with a baseball bat and roared “you’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead”.
The van and car were traveling on the wrong side of the road, the court heard.
The van being driven by Phillips, who was accompanied by a female and a young child, collided with Mr Fehilly and Mr Traynor, both from Clonmel, County Tipperary, after he took a bend in the road at high speed.
Mr Fehilly died almost instantly, and Mr Traynor was rushed to hospital, later undergoing 22 surgeries. Mr Traynor ultimately had to have one of his legs amputated below the knee and subsequently died.
Judge McMullan described as “absolutely reprehensible” Stanners’ driving leading up to the collision, and said she found it “difficult to imagine a worse scenario” for the victims’ families.
The judge said the three motorcyclist enthusiasts were travelling “perfectly appropriately” in single file and below the speed limit and their motorbikes were in top condition.
The court heard Stanners does not accept the judgement of the jury that convicted him. He had previous convictions for dangerous driving, careless driving, drug driving, driving without insurance, arson, possession of an article capable of inflicting serious injury, and theft.
The judge said Phillips was “not the instigator” as “he was pursued Mr Stanners”, but that he was “very culpable”.
Loraine Fehilly set out in her victim impact statement the “emotional turmoil on her and her children”, the judge said.
“She lost her husband, who was a full-time carer for their son, Sam, and that is a really tragic outcome.”
Nancy Traynor said her husband was “never the same” after the collision and that he “suffered nightmares and flashbacks and would often wake up screaming”, the judge added
Dara Traynor told the court in her victim impact statement that her family had been devastated by the loss of her father. Her sister, Ciara, “poignantly set out how distressed her father was in hospital when he couldn’t say a last goodbye to his friend (Fehilly) as the risk of infection was too high and he couldn’t leave the hospital”.
Philips was banned by the courts from driving at the time he ploughed into the motorcyclists. He had previous convictions for driving without insurance, driving without a licence, possession of firearms, trespass, and theft.
Speaking outside the court, the deceased men’s families called for the maximum sentence for dangerous driving to be increased from 10 years to 14 years.
Maurice Fehilly’s widow, Loraine Fehilly, and Mr Traynor’s widow, Nancy Traynor, said they loved and missed their husbands but welcomed the sentences and said they felt they had “got justice”.
