Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time is enemy action Yes. There are some occasions when pleading guilty is the only...

"Our legal system doesn’t require you prove your innocence. In fact it doesn’t require you to prove anything. The burden of proof in any criminal case rests with the State"

"You had wondered whether you would disappear behind it. You told yourself you wouldn’t. But you had been lying to yourself and now you would pay the price for that deception too"

"But in 95% of hit and run cases, there is no injury caused to anyone else, and jail is highly unlikely, especially for first time offenders"

Drink Driving Court Process in Ireland: What to Expect O ne of the most common questions I’m asked is: what actually happens in court...

"Get used to further one-star accommodation as you wile away your days in a little room with a chap affectionately known by his friends as ‘Killer’.  

"His rule/whim was simple, and brutal: if you were convicted of drink driving in his court, you went to prison. First offence? It made no difference. The result? Everyone pleaded not guilty. Even where the evidence was insurmountable. Why? Because a guilty plea meant an automatic jail sentence"

"If you actually listen to what judges say in court around the country, you’ll often hear some variation of the same phrase: “My lists are very long enough as it is. I’m trying to clear my lists, not add to them”. So, they need good reasons to keep adjourning cases. Because without good reason they won’t".

"Benzoylecgonine doesn’t cause impairment. At all. Read that again. Unlike cocaine, cannabis, heroin or MDMA which does cause impairment in some way, BZE does not"

"The legal limit for benzoylecgonine is 50ngs. And the mean level for it was a whopping 1032.9ng, more than 20 times the legal limit"

"The youngest arrested driver was 13 years old. The oldest was 90. The youngest male driver was 13 years old. The youngest female was 18"

That's the horror story above. It's pretty bad. The question you have to ask yourself is: "Do I want that reality?" Well of course you don't.

"Every decent person I’ve represented has felt exactly like this. And the vast majority of my clients are good, decent people. Ashamed. Sick. Silently panicking. But very decent. You're decent too, right?"

"Most people still think "drug driving" means cannabis or cocaine. They don't realise that prescription medication, taken legally, even with a GP’s advice, can put them off the road"

After all, as most judges see it, if you’ve been convicted of bad driving before, then you’re clearly not learning your lesson. “So why should I give you another chance?”

"Remember those labels that say, “may cause drowsiness”?  You should pay attention to those. They’re there for a reason. If the medication that you take can cause you to become drowsy then you shouldn’t drive

"I have never seen someone in possession of a [medical exemption for drugs], and even if they did have one, it wouldn't protect them if they were impaired while driving.

"Judges sit through bad crash cases every week. They’ve seen how fast things go wrong. They’ve seen the injured parties in court. They’ve watched CCTV"

"It’s not necessarily about what happened. It’s about what could have happened. And under Irish law, risk is enough"

"This is the part people find hardest to accept. You didn’t crash. You didn’t kill anyone. You didn’t even bump a wing mirror. Maybe you weren’t even speeding?