A man was killed just hours before his wedding when a telephone pole went through the front windscreen of a car, a court has heard.
Myles 'Miley' Harty, 20, from Askeaton, Co Limerick, was fatally injured while travelling as a front-seat passenger in a Skoda Octavia that was driven by his best man and cousin, Shane Harty.
The car left the Askeaton to Rathkeale road and struck a wall, a ditch and a pole between midnight and 1am on 21 August, 2021.
The car became airborne after striking the wall and went into a roll as it collided with the ditch before impacting with the telephone pole, Limerick Circuit Criminal court heard.
Myles Harty, whose son Miley was born a few months after he died, suffered catastrophic head injuries and was pronounced dead at the scene.
The evidence of the fatal collision, as well as emotional victim impact statements written by the Myles Harty's parents and fiancée, Kate Quilligan, were shared at Shane Harty's sentencing hearing.
Prosecuting barrister Lilly Buckley said the force of the inverted car crashing into the telephone pole was such that the pole "broke at its base and travelled through the car and impacted on the head of Myles Harty, which obviously led to significant head injuries".
Shane Harty was initially charged with one count of dangerous driving causing Myles Harty's death.
However, a week prior to his trial, the State accepted a guilty plea offered by the defendant to one count of a lesser offence of careless driving causing Mr Harty's death, which carries a sentence of a maximum of two years in jail and or a €10,000 fine.
The collision occurred as Shane Harty, Myles Harty and another cousin, Daniel Harty, were travelling in Shane Harty's car after shopping in Limerick city earlier as part of their final preparations for Myles Harty's wedding to Ms Quilligan.
It was a road the three men had regularly travelled at night, Ms Buckley said.
Following the collision, Shane Harty admitted to gardaí that he had been speeding and "showing off".
When gardaí put it to Shane Harty that "there is no doubt that at the time you lost control of the car you were speeding", he agreed and replied, "no doubt".
Shane Harty told gardaí he regretted "everything" and he would have driven "a lot slower" if he had the opportunity to go back in time to the morning in question.
"I'm sorry it happened, it shouldn't have happened," he told gardaí.
Ms Buckley said a garda forensic collision investigator who examined the scene had not been able to determine the exact pre-collision speed of the car, but he was of the view that the circumstances involved "strongly suggested that it (the car) was traveling above the speed limit of 80km/h".
No other vehicle was involved, the road conditions were good and the car was in good working order, it was heard.
The car eventually came to a stop "lying on its roof", a distance of 22.9 metres from where it left the road.
A post-mortem report stated Myles Harty suffered "non-survivable" head injuries after sustaining "multiple complex facial and skulls fractures" when the telephone poll collided with his head.
Ms Buckley read out emotional victim impact statements by Ms Quilligan and his parents, Margaret and Myles Harty Sr, who were present in the court.
"Every morning I wake up I relive the nightmare of that day. It will never leave my mind," Ms Quilligan's statement read.
"It should have been the happiest day of my life ... it has shattered so many lives and robbed our son, Miley, of his father."
Margaret and Myles Harty Sr wrote that "things will never be the same" after their son's sudden death.
"Myles was preparing for his wedding day but he never got the chance to celebrate his special day," they said.
"Myles always had a big beautiful smile on his face, he is a big loss for us all ... He went out that night and told us, 'I'll be back in five minutes', but he never returned."
In letters penned to Myles Harty's loved ones, Shane Harty offered his sincere apologies and sympathies and he said he had lost his "best friend" in the collision.
"I wish I could turn back time," he added.
Shane Harty's barrister, senior counsel Brian McInerney, asked the sentencing judge, Colin Daly, to consider a number of mitigating factors in his judgment.
Mr McInerney said Shane Harty was genuinely remorseful, had no previous convictions, had a clean driver's licence, had cooperated with gardaí and had no traces of alcohol or drugs in his system at the time of the collision.
"Whatever sentence is imposed by the court, he (Shane Harty) has a heavy burden, he is already serving a life sentence of that burden every waking moment of his life," Mr McInerney said.
Judge Daly said he needed more time to consider his sentence and remanded Shane Harty on continuing bail to appear before Limerick Circuit Court for final judgment on 25 November.
