Teen driver sentenced after killing 12-year-old in beach buggy accident

by Q Radio News

A teenage killer driver who caused the death of a 12-year-old girl when the beach buggy she was driving crashed into a pick up truck wept in court today (fri) as she was handed an 18 month probation order. 

As well as the probation order and although defence QC Gregory Berry argued that District Judge Des Perry could impose a 12 or 18 month driving ban, the judge banned the 16-year-old from driving for four years after telling the senior lawyer that having thought about the case in the days leading up to today’s hearing “the impact it would have on the parents of Nicole to see the defendant driving around the roads in a relatively short period of time.”

“To my mind that would be horrendous,” said the judge as Nicole’s mum Margo wept quietly in the public gallery, just a few feet from the girl who caused her daughter’s death, constantly holding the hand of her husband Cathal. 

Sentencing the 16-year-old, who can it be identified due to her age, Judge Perry said while she had not been speeding in the dune buggy, it was a “bad mistake” to drive the vehicle, which wasn’t road worthy and did not have working seat belts, along the “narrow and twisty” Flagstaff Road in Newry “where you couldn’t see what was ahead of you.”

The schoolgirl had initially been charged with causing Nicole’s death by dangerous driving but after a day of evidence, Judge Perry convicted her of the lesser offence of causing the death of her 12-year-old passenger by careless driving on 18 November 2017. 

She was also convicted of being an unlicensed driver causing death and an uninsured driver causing death. 

The judge heard how the teenager, who was just 14 at the time, was driving the American made beach buggy, which had a top speed of 60 mph, to get more petrol for it when it collided with a pick up truck. 

The other driver told the court he braked as hard as he could and pulled over to the verge on the country road but tragically, the collision couldn’t be avoided. 

Nicole was able to get out of the buggy herself but she collapsed at the side of the road and the air ambulance was called to rush her to hospital. 

Tragically, as a result of internal bleeding caused by a laceration to her liver, Nicole died on her way to hospital on what was her parents’ wedding anniversary. 

The judge heard evidence that the manual for the beach buggy warned that it was not suitable for the roads, that seat belts and helmets should be worn by the driver and passenger but neither Nicole nor the driver were wearing helmets while an engineers report showed the passenger seat belt where Nicole was sitting, was broken. 

Imposing the driving ban, Judge Perry warned the teenager that “undoubtedly, your friends will acquire cars - do not under any circumstances be tempted to get behind the wheel of a car.”

At the end of the hearing, defence solicitor Gerald Trainor told Judge Perry there would be an appeal of the sentence he imposed. 

Speaking outside court, the devastation and harrowing pain still being endured by Nicole’s parents was plain to see, both of them staring into empty space and tears continually falling from Margo’s face. 

“We have a life time of not having Nicole with us and she has a wee driving ban for a few years and that will pass relatively quickly,” said Cathal and Margo added: “She will be 20 and she’ll be able to drive - she should just take the punishment today definitely.”

The Mayobridge couple had gone out that day to celebrate their wedding anniversary when they were contacted and told about the accident. 

Rushing to Craigavon Hospital, a police officer met them and gave them the heart breaking news that their “wonderful, wonderful” Nicole had sadly passed away. 

“We spent our wedding anniversary in the morgue,” says Cathal adding that now “we spend pretty much all our time in the grave yard.”

“You look at the adverts on the TV, the police coming to the door and giving bad news and you don’t think it will ever come to you but because of other people’s carelessness, recklessness and disregard, our child is dead and they’re appealing the sentence.

“Our lives are basically over, we just go through the motions until we are dead. 

“There’s no release and there never will be any release until we are dead.”

Nicole was the couples’ youngest daughter and like any 12-year-old, “she just loved life, loved everything” but because of the the accident almost two years ago, her life has been “snuffed out, robbed.”

Unsurprisingly, Cathal describes how their daughter is “always in our thoughts, 24/7, every second and every hour of every day.”

“People think you get over it but you never get over the loss of a child. 

“Our wedding anniversary is gone, summer holidays are gone, I’ll never get to walk her down the aisle , grandchildren, all of that but it’s also about Nicole’s own future, what she would’ve done, where she would’ve ended up, we will never know.”