Longford motorist disqualified from driving for a further ten years

A man with eleven previous driving offences has been handed a three month prison suspended sentence, following further offences which appeared before Longford District Court last week.

Lukasz Kasprzyk of 18 Dun Darrach, Longford, appeared before Judge Bernadette Owens charged with driving while disqualified, driving with no insurance, driving without a licence, and being in possession of €120 worth of cannabis.

Sergeant Enda Daly, for the state, explained that Mr Kasprzyk’s previous offences include five for no insurance, three for driving without a licence, two for driving while intoxicated and one for dangerous driving.

The most recent of those was in September when he was fined €1,000 and disqualified for eight years for driving with no insurance. He was fined a further €1,000 for driving without a licence.

Prior to that, in September 2015, he was given a suspended prison sentence of four years for driving without insurance. He was also fined €750 and disqualified for eight years. A driving while disqualified charge was taken into consideration.

Solicitor for the defence, Frank Gearty, explained that his client is a hardworking man from Poland who has a car valeting business and speaks “perfect English”.

“He is enduring an eight year disqualification and I’ve advised him he won’t be able to apply to remove it for ten years,” said Mr Gearty.

“He’s in a sticky situation. Regretfully, he drove. He’s engaged to be married soon. He’s a man of 30 years old and is a hard worker. It wasn’t his car he drove.

“He was tested at the Garda station that evening and there were no drugs in his system. He was coming back from a friend’s house.”

Judge Owens, upon considering the evidence, sentenced him to four months in prison, suspending it for 12 months, and disqualified him for ten years.