The Court of Appeal has dismissed Michael Collins’s appeal against his sentence for dangerous driving that caused Jillian Thornton’s death and against his lifetime driving disqualification. The court found no error of principle in the sentencing judge’s decisions.
A jury found Collins guilty of 16 offences arising from driving on 27 May 2016 over a 39-kilometre route near Drogheda and Duleek. The offences included dangerous driving causing death, two counts of endangerment, driving under the influence of cannabis and 12 counts of dangerous driving.
The judgment describes a 35-minute sequence in which Collins drove at speed, crossed onto the wrong side of the road, went through red lights and drove without headlights. Gardaí and other motorists had to take evasive action. The journey ended when his vehicle collided with an oncoming car. Thornton, a passenger in Collins’s car, died. Blood analysis confirmed cannabis in Collins’s system.
In July 2019, the Circuit Criminal Court imposed a total of 15 years’ imprisonment. It ordered the ten-year sentence for dangerous driving causing death to run consecutively to a five-year endangerment sentence, with the final year of the ten-year term suspended on conditions. A separate three-year endangerment sentence and the dangerous-driving sentences ran concurrently. Collins also received a lifetime driving disqualification.
On appeal, Collins argued that the maximum ten-year sentence, consecutive terms and overall sentence were excessive and disproportionate, and that the sentencing judge had failed to give sufficient weight to rehabilitation. The Court of Appeal said the fatal-driving offence fell within the highest sentencing range and that the ten-year term was open to the sentencing judge. It accepted that the judge could impose consecutive sentences for the endangerment incidents, which it considered separate episodes involving Gardaí being driven at in a targeted manner.
The appeal court said the sentencing judge should preferably have expressly addressed the totality principle, but it was not satisfied that double counting or a material sentencing error had occurred. It also found no evidential basis for a longer suspended period. The judgment noted that Collins was working on drug and alcohol addiction problems in prison, but said that did not establish an error in the suspension decision.
The court also rejected the challenge to the lifetime ban. It said Collins’s repeated serious driving offences despite earlier disqualifications supported the conclusion that he was unfit to hold a driving licence. Both appeals were dismissed.