A 53-YEAR-OLD motorist who was severely injured in a fatal road traffic collision in Kesh last summer had never held a full driving licence, Fermanagh Magistrates Court has heard.

Breige Gillen, of Derrybeg View, Ederney, pleaded guilty to using a motor vehicle without insurance at Manoo Road, Kesh and not having a driving licence on June 10 last year.

Gillen further pleaded guilty to three counts of withholding information, namely that she no longer held a valid provisional driving licence, for the purpose of obtaining a certificate of insurance on July 27, 2013 and the same dates in 2014 and 2015.

The prosecutor told the court that, as a result of this case, the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) was not alleging that the defendant caused the road traffic collision that occurred. The two-vehicle crash, which occurred at around 6pm on June 10, 2015, claimed the life of 51-year-old John Forsythe.

The court heard that the collision, involving a silver Combi Van and a red Vauxhall Astra, had been reported to the Northern Ireland Ambulance Service’s 999 system. Paramedics were at the scene when the police arrived. The van driver, later named as Mr Forsythe, was subsequently pronounced dead. Gillen, who had been driving the Astra, was taken to the local hospital. She remained there for several weeks for treatment.

The court was told that enquiries into the collision were still ongoing and that investigators were waiting on the results of forensic tests.

During the course of the investigation, it emerged that the defendant had never held a full driving licence. She had previously held a provisional licence from June 1998, but that had expired in 2008 and was never renewed it. Further enquiries with her insurance company revealed that Gillen had informed them that she had a provisional licence, and had not described it as expired. As a consequence, her insurance company do not accept that she ever had valid insurance.

Defending solicitor, Nicola McCaffrey, told the court that her client acknowledged the “seriousness” of the charges against her and she was “deeply remorseful”.

In mitigation, the solicitor said that the defendant had been paying for car insurance, but now accepted that it was invalidated.

Ms McCaffrey said that Gillen had not renewed her provisional licence in 2008 because she had stopped taking driving lessons.

Outlining the circumstances of the collision, which occurred on a bend, the solicitor said that her client saw the van coming towards her on her side of the road and had “no way of avoiding him”. She said that the defendant’s “only option” had been to take to his side of the road.

However, Ms McCaffrey said that, at the same time, the van driver had tried to bring his vehicle back to his side.

The solicitor told the court that her instructions were that it had been a “clear day”. As a result of the accident, her client sustained five broken bones in each foot and a ruptured bowel. She spent three weeks in hospital and a further four weeks recuperating at home, during which she was wheelchair-bound. The defendant, a mother-of-three and grandmother-of-four, still attends a fractures clinic and receives physiotherapy. She is also due to have surgery on her ruptured bowel.

A legal secretary by profession, her solicitor handed in a letter of reference from her employer. When asked by district judge Nigel Broderick whether the defendant had “any rational explanation” for not renewing her provisional licence, Ms McCaffrey replied that she stopped taking driving lessons. Pressing further, the judge inquired why Gillen had continued to drive, prompting the solicitor to say: “It was a decision she mistakenly made.” Mr Broderick observed that the defendant had been driving on her own and with no ‘L’ plates on display, so nobody would have been aware of her “lack of competency”.

“For some reason, those charges [of driving unaccompanied and not displaying L plates] aren’t before me,” he said.

The judge imposed fines totalling £525, a £15 offender levy and a six-month driving disqualification.