A 28-year-old driver who fled the crashed car in which his girlfriend was dying and did not seek help was sentenced to a total of sixteen months in prison at the Circuit Criminal Court in Castlebar yesterday (Thursday July 20 2023).

Liam Ginty, Inver, Barnatra, Belmullet, appeared for sentencing before Judge Eoin Garavan having pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to dangerous driving on March 17, 2022, causing the death of Tracey Moran (25), Milltown, Glenamoy and leaving the scene of the impact at Knocknalower, Barnatra.

In a victim impact statement read in open court Ms. Moran’s parents said they will always struggle with the fact that Mr. Ginty left their daughter to die in the car and did not call for help.

An earlier court was told that the couple had been socialising together in Belmullet and got into Mr. Ginty’s car after failing to get a taxi home.

Later, when the car crashed into a pillar at Knocknalower, a local couple heard a loud bang and found Tracey Moran slumped in the footwell of the passenger seat with no sign of the driver.

In a bid to find the missing driver, the local Coastguard unit and a rescue helicopter was tasked to search the area.

When Liam Ginty’s mother heard her son had been involved in a traffic accident she found him at home, brought him to Belmullet Garda Station telling officers she was bringing him to hospital.

When interviewed by Gardai the following day Mr. Ginty admitted he had been driving and claimed to have ‘panicked’.

Pleading for leniency, Desmond Dockery, counsel for Mr. Ginty, asked Judge Garavan to take all the mitigating factors into account and to suspend any custodial sentence.

Stating that the life of the Moran family had been “permanently marred”, Judge Garavan sentenced Mr. Ginty to three years in prison with the final 20 months suspended.