A ROAD rage Falcarragh motorist who swerved his car at two cyclists has been warned he will go to jail if he comes back before the courts.
Jonathan Doherty (22), from Ballyconnell Road in the town, pleaded guilty at Falcarragh District Court yesterday to driving at two cyclists on March 21 last year.
Garda Inspector David Kelly told the court, sitting in Letterkenny, that two cyclists were on their way from Kilmacrennan to Dunlewey when they heard a car behind them blowing its horn.
“When the car passed them, it swerved in towards the cyclists before appearing to lose control and then driving off,” said Inspector Kelly.
Doherty also faced a number of other charges relating to other offences on other dates in 2012 including one where he stepped onto a road in front of a car.
Defence solicitor Patsy Gallagher said his client had been in “a lot of trouble” in recent years.
He said Doherty’s uncle had died in a house fire several years ago and “while he has never used that an excuse, at certain times of the year he did get into trouble.”
Mr Gallagher told Judge Conal Gibbons: “He is a young man who accepts that he could be looking at a custodial sentence today.
“However I would ask the court to consider community service. The last time he did community service it gave him a purpose in life and allowed him to give something back to his community. “
Judge Gibbons said however that while some of the charges before the court might be explained because Doherty knew people, in the case of the cyclists, he couldn’t explain it.
“Has he got something against cyclists?” asked the judge.
“There may have been history in that he knew the motorist in the incident where he stepped onto the road but in the case of the cyclists, is it simply that he is a trouble maker and that is the long and short of it?”
The Judge, addressing Mr Gallagher, went on: “Why should two people going about their lawful business in what is one of the most beautiful parts of Ireland and then they come across your client who for his own reasons decides to make their lives a misery?
“Why should he (Doherty) not be stopped in his tracks and and shown how the law deals with people who don’t respect others?
“It makes me very worried – I’m thinking of those two cyclists and the fear put into them.”
The judge said Doherty had swerved at the cyclists just three days before he was due in court on other charges.
“I’m obliged to send him straight to prison,” Judge Gibbons told Mr Gallagher.
However the solicitor asked the judge to consider suspending any prison sentence to give Doherty a chance to prove himself.
The judge sentenced Doherty to four months in prison for dangerous driving, but suspended the sentence for two years.
Doherty was also banned from driving for three years and fined a total of €600 to include other offences of driving a vehicle with defective number plates.
Doherty approached the judge, saying: ‘Thank you.”
Judge Gibbons told him: “Let me warn you Mr Doherty that Mr Gallagher would need all his skills of persuasion to keep you out of prison if yo