John Maguire jailed for dangerous driving causing serious harm

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

John Maguire was jailed for three and a half years and disqualified from driving for six years by Judge Martin Nolan at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 25 July 2018.

Maguire pleaded guilty to dangerous driving causing serious harm to Josh Sweeney at Memorial Road, Dublin, on 18 March 2017. He also pleaded guilty to driving while suffering from a disease or mental disability which would render him a danger to the public. The proceedings were reported on 25 July 2018.

Sweeney was crossing at a green pedestrian light when Maguire’s van hit him. Maguire later told gardaí he had no recollection of the collision because he was having an epileptic fit at the time. Another witness noticed the driver frothing from the mouth and lying in the passenger seat after the vehicle stopped.

Maguire claimed he had been told he was fit to drive after a seizure in December 2016. Garda Derek Grant said his last documented seizure before the collision was in January 2017 and a doctor had advised him not to drive for 12 months from then.

Garda Grant said Sweeney suffered skull fractures, brain injury and broken limbs. In a victim impact statement, Sweeney’s mother described how her son struggled to move a single limb and could neither communicate nor feed himself.

Garda Grant agreed with defence counsel Dominic McGinn that Maguire had pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity and accepted that he showed genuine remorse. Judge Nolan said Maguire had serious moral culpability for ignoring an obvious risk, despite the mitigating circumstances.