Deaths of Clones schoolgirls recalled in emotionally-charged court hearing

Sentencing adjourned in dangerous driving causing death case to next week

SENTENCING has been adjourned until next week in the case of a 61-year-old Monaghan man who has admitted causing the deaths of two teenage girls by dangerous driving while bringing them to a debs ball in July 2023.

Anthony McGinn of Drumloo, Newbliss, Co Monaghan, was pleading guilty to dangerous driving causing the deaths of Kiea McCann (17) and her friend Dlava Mohamed (16), and to dangerous driving causing serious bodily harm to Avin Mohamed, Dlava’s sister.

The horror crash occurred on the N54 at Legnakelly, a few miles outside Clones, shortly after 6:30pm on July 31, 2023, when the BMW car being driven by McGinn lost control and struck a tree. The court heard forensics showed it was travelling at over 120km per hour at the point of impact. Four teenagers who were attending Largy College in Clones were being driven to their debs at Monaghan town’s Westenra Hotel.

During an emotionally charged two-hour hearing at Monaghan Circuit Criminal Court today [May 7], a number of family members of the deceased girls left the courtroom before distressing dashcam footage of the accident was shown.

It was clear from the video, taken from a vehicle travelling directly behind Mr McGinn’s BMW, that the road was wet from rainfall at the time of the accident.

The court rose for short recesses on two occasions to allow people in the public gallery, including the victims’ family members and friends, to compose themselves as evidence was given and the camera footage was shown.

Judge John Aylmer was told by Garda Inspector Ann Marie Lardner that forensic investigations had determined that the BMW reached a speed of over 151km/h shortly before the crash and had been doing 121km/h at the point of impact with the base of a tree.

Insp Lardner confirmed to Frank Martin BL, prosecuting, that the speed limit on that particular stretch of roadway was 80km/h. Mr McGinn’s average speed between Clones and the scene of the collision had been calculated at 138.85km/h.

The inspector also agreed that speed was the primary cause of the accident.

Insp Lardner said the defendant had four young passengers in the vehicle. All were injured in the collision, and McGinn himself had been airlifted from the scene and was in a coma for about eight weeks.

Victim impact statements read to the court underlined the ongoing distress, pain and loss experienced by members of both girls’ families. Insp Lardner read the statement from Mohamed Mohamed, Dlava’s father. Mr Mohamed said Dlava was “my flesh and blood, a piece of my heart”, and that burying her was “a pain I will carry for the rest of my life”. His family left Syria in 2017 to follow their dreams, but now Dlava was never going to get that chance.

In the statement from Dlava’s sister Avin, who had survived the crash, she said that the night in question was supposed to be one of the happiest in her life. “My sister came with me because I had no one else to go with,” she said.

But “everything changed” the moment they got into that car. Anthony, the driver, began speeding, and she remembered being angry and telling him to stop. Then everything went black and, when she woke up, she was in hospital with serious injuries including brain trauma. She had also suffered broken bones in her legs, as well as fractured ribs and a punctured lung.

Mr Frankie McCann read his own victim impact statement personally, as did two of Kiea’s sisters. Mr McCann in his statement said his daughter always wanted to help others.

He said she was a bright shining star and that you always heard her before you saw her. She passed all her Leaving Cert exams with distinction despite suffering from dyslexia had aspired to being a social worker. But her life was taken by a driver who “has never shown any remorse”, he stated.

Mr McCann, who was one of the first on the scene of the accident, also recalled how he tried in vain to give CPR to his daughter and her best friend while her brothers and sisters watched.

Defence barrister Breffni Gordon acknowledged that members of the victims' families had expressed the view that his client had not expressed any remorse.

But he pointed to the probation and welfare report, in which there was a “significant expression of remorse”. Mr McGinn had not been a position, however, to communicate that remorse to any of the family members, he added

Counsel also pointed out that McGinn had no previous convictions of any sort. He asked the court in passing sentencing to consider too the extensive injuries the defendant himself had suffered, and also to consider his age and other mitigating circumstances.

Judge Aylmer indicated that he was adjourning the case, and following consultations at his behest with victims’ family members, he set Wednesday next, May 14 as the date for sentencing.