Delivery driver guilty of drug driving
A newspaper delivery driver has been put off the road for a year after pleading guilty to driving under the influence of cannabis on two separate occasion.
Linas Nutautas (28) of Rusheen, Boyle, Co. Roscommon, exceeded the drug limit for cannabis on September 16, 2021 at Cloonmaan, Carrick-on-Shannon, Co. Roscommon. He also pleaded to the same offence on 27 December 2021 at Drishogue, Carrick-on-Shannon.
Carrick-on-Shannon District court heard that on the date of the first offence, September 16, 2021 Nutautas was detected speeding by a Garda checkpoint, arrested and taken to Carrick-on-Shannon Garda station where a blood sample tested positive for cannabis at 17.1 ng/ml.
Inspector Frank Egan also told Judge Sandra Murphy that over three months later, at 12.30pom on December 27, 2021, Gardai observed Nutautas driving through two roundabouts without indicating before they stopped him at Drishogue.
He was arrested and taken to Carrick-on-Shannon Garda station where he again tested positive for cannabis with a reading of 37.2 ng/ml.
Mr John Anderson, defending, told Judge Murphy that Nutautas was pleading guilty to the drug driving charges. On foot of this plea, the Judge struck out a charge of careless driving on December 27,2021.
Nutautas has 11 previous convictions, four for road traffic offences including disqualifications for drink driving and seven other offences.
Mr Anderson said his client had been living in Dublin at the time of those previous convictions and had “moved down to this part of the country to get away from all that.”
He said Nutautas was a young man working part-time delivering newspapers. “He tells me he is off all drugs and would like to come back to court to prove that. He seems to be a man that is at risk given his previous convictions,” he added.
Judge Murphy said what concerned her in a “really big way” was that the accused was stopped twice for the same offences. “It seems to me that he has little or no regard for the safety of others on the road,” she told Mr Anderson.
Mr Anderson added that his client was the father of two young children to which the judge exclaimed: “You’re going out on the road - you’re putting children at risk.”
She convicted Nutautas of drug driving for the September 2021 offence, fining him €250 and disqualifying him from driving for a year, noting that Nutautas went out on the road drug driving with two previous disqualifications,
Judge Murphy adjourned sentencing on the two December 2021 charges to July 28 for the preparation of a Probation Report. She also postponed the driving disqualification to July 28.