A MAN has been jailed for 10 years for causing “significant injuries” to four people in a head-on road crash after a day out drinking in Newcastle.
Emmet Magee was called “wicked and disgraceful” by a judge for causing the crash as he overtook before a bend on the Bryansford Road on May 31 last year.
At Downpatrick Crown Court on Friday, Judge Piers Grant said that the driver of the oncoming car, a local student nurse, who was with two young friends, “had absolutely no chance” as 33 year-old Magee was travelling directly towards her at 70mph on the wrong side of the road.
He said that emergency services faced a “scene of utter destruction” after the collision as three people in the other car had to be cut from the wreckage.
Witnesses at the scene also saw Magee clamber over his former girlfriend, who was in the passenger seat, also seriously injured and struggling to breathe, “using her body as a form of lever in order to extract himself”, added the judge.
Judge Grant said it showed Magee had been “simply selfish and was concerned only about himself, not anyone else”.
“Having gotten out of the car, he was seen to be urinating at the side of the road with his trousers around his knees, struggling [to stand] and smelling of alcohol,” the judge added.
A blood reading by police found Magee was more than two times over the legal alcohol limit.
Magee told police officers: “I’m just gutted, I made a mistake.”
Magee, from Sylvan Street, Belfast, was sentenced to nine and a half years in jail after admitting four counts of causing grievous bodily harm by dangerous driving along with other charges. A six-month suspended sentence was also put into operation and will be served consecutively.
He will spend five years and three months of the sentence in jail and the remainder out on licence.
He also admitted taking his mother’s car without consent, driving while unfit through drink or drugs, driving without insurance and possessing cannabis.
Magee, dressed casually in a grey fleece top and grey jogging bottoms, spent most of the 40-minute summation from the judge with his head bowed.
The hearing was attended by some of Magee’s victims, who were supported by family members and friends.
The court heard that Magee had taken his former girlfriend to Newcastle for a day out and they had spent the day drinking before returning home around 11pm.
Judge Piers said that Magee, who was driving a Volkwagen Golf, was tailgating a van when he pulled out to overtake.
The student nurse was travelling in her Ford Mondeo with another young woman and man, who all sustained “extremely grievous” injuries, including multiple bone fractures and “significant mental health trauma”. They were left with
bodily scars and other lasting physical issues.
Judge Piers said that after the crash, the student nurse was unable to complete her third and final year of a nursing degree and her two passengers were unable to start university due to the severity of their injuries and lengthy period of recovery.
He added the consequences for them and their future lives “could only be said to be substantial”.
The judge said Magee, who had a lengthy record, had confessed and expressed remorse, but “has to bear the responsibility for what he has inflicted”.
He told Magee’s victims that while no sentence “could wash away or wipe away” the damage he caused, he assured them he had taken it into account in handing down the maximum sentence allowed due to aggravating factors he had considered.