Banned driver jailed for five months tells garda 'you will know what a petrol bomb is'

A man facing court today on a driving while disqualified charge met a garda earlier this week, and said: "Do you know what a petrol bomb is? You will know what a petrol bomb is."

Banned driver jailed for five months tells garda 'you will know what a petrol bomb is'

A man facing court today on a driving while disqualified charge met a garda earlier this week, and said: "Do you know what a petrol bomb is? You will know what a petrol bomb is."

Ivars Mizans from West Green in Dunmanway in West Cork was arrested on Tuesday last near Clonakilty Courthouse on a charge of being intoxicated to the extent that he was a danger to himself or others.

Garda Kevin Kennedy told Judge James McNulty Mr Mizans made the "petrol bomb" remark to the officer.

Mizans, it emerged, had been due to appear in court in relation to separate charges relating to February 20 last.

Bantry District Court was told that gardaí on patrol in Dunmanway, had been aware Mizans was disqualified from driving when spotted driving a Volkswagen Passat.

When stopped, he had no insurance and no driving licence and the car was subsequently seized.

Today, he was jailed for five months and banned from driving for eight years.

His solicitor Colette McCarthy said, that last Tuesday her client "knew what he was facing" in relation to the charges from February and, with a friend, went for a drink.

Mizans, 38, had in February been driving a friend to hospital when detected while disqualified. Ms McCarthy said he was a valued employee at a garage in Dunmanway, where he worked part-time.

He had 28 previous convictions, mainly between 2003 and 2008. However, the court heard he had five previous convictions for driving with no insurance, the first dating back to 2006.

A year ago, the circuit court suspended a five-month jail sentence for a previous instance of driving with no insurance. Judge McNulty today said the court had no sympathy Mizans who had made "a very big mistake".

He was given concurrent sentences of five months in prison for driving with no insurance and driving while disqualified. He also received two eight-year driving disqualifications.

Ms McCarthy said the defendant's employers would go surety for him in the event of an appeal. The judge said Mizans had "poor prospects on appeal" and suggested any appeal was buying him time, and for his employers buying his services.

He referred to a previous conviction in which Mr Mizans was driving while uninsured and struck a pedestrian. "This man is clearly lawless and totally contemptuous of Irish law and other people that he encounters," the judge said.

Any appeal, he said, would require an independent surety of €10,000, all cash and up front.

He was fined €300 on the drunkenness charge.

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