The Court of Appeal reduced Chloe Bates’s sentence from 12 months to eight months’ imprisonment after finding that the Circuit Court had not given sufficient weight to mitigating factors. It upheld the assessment that the careless driving was at the upper end of seriousness and that a custodial sentence was warranted.
Bates had pleaded guilty to careless driving causing serious bodily harm and failing to stop at the scene of an accident. On 18 June 2020, the Circuit Court in Wexford imposed 12 months for the careless driving offence and a concurrent four months for failing to stop. The Court of Appeal quashed those sentences and substituted an eight-month term, backdated to 18 June 2020.
The offences arose from a collision on 28 May 2018 at Millands, Gorey, County Wexford. Pamela Levingston was walking her two dogs near her home when Bates’s car struck her, throwing her into a ditch. Levingston suffered serious injuries, including heart injuries requiring stenting, and spent about five months in hospital. Neighbours found her at about 8.20am, almost an hour after the collision.
The prosecution’s position at the sentencing hearing was that Bates knew her car had struck something and did not stop. It said it would not lead evidence that she knew she had hit a person. The appeal judgment recounted that Bates later told a work colleague she had hit a wall or post, reversed, saw nothing and drove home. She subsequently went with her mother to a Garda station and made her car available for examination.
The Court of Appeal agreed with the Circuit Court that the driving showed a high degree of carelessness. It also accepted that the injuries and failure to stop were aggravating factors. The appeal court considered the Circuit Court’s 18-month headline sentence before mitigation appropriate, and rejected the suggestion that a non-custodial sentence was suitable.
However, the appeal court found that the combined mitigating factors required a greater reduction. It cited Bates’s guilty plea, her cooperation in attending the Garda station and making the vehicle available, her lack of previous convictions, positive character references, and her age at the time of the collision. The judgment records that she was 19 then.
The court also took account of Bates having been in custody since 18 June 2020, her quarantine on entering custody, and blood-pressure issues documented in a GP discharge letter. It concluded that eight months was the more appropriate sentence. The appeal concerned sentence; the court did not disturb the guilty pleas.