A MAN has appeared in court accused of a number of motoring offences after three children were trapped beneath a vehicle in West Belfast on Sunday.
Thomas Noel Maughan (37) from Black Ridge Gardens appeared in the dock at Belfast Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday charged with driving with excess alcohol, causing grievous bodily injury by dangerous driving and failing to stop, failing to remain and failing to report where an accident occurred causing injury.
A PSNI constable told the court she could connect Maughan to the offences.
The court heard that shortly after 5pm on Sunday police responded to a report of a collision in the Black Ridge View area off the Monagh Bypass where a woman told them that her two children and their friend were playing on the footpath when a car had reversed over them and the driver made off and returned to another address.
The officer told the court that police had visited the address but the driver was not present. A member of the public notified the police that the suspected driver was in a taxi at the end of the street which was blocked by emergency service vehicles. He was arrested at the scene.
The court heard that CCTV of the incident shows the defendant getting into the car, driving directly over the three children who were sitting on the footpath.
“They are then trapped under his vehicle. The defendant reverses back over them, parking up his vehicle and returning to his address without checking on the welfare of the children. It then shows the defendant jumping the back fence of the property immediately after the incident.”
The court heard Maughan had made full admissions during police interview to being the driver and to driving with excess alcohol.
One of the victims had suffered a fractured pelvis.
A defence lawyer for Maughan told the court that a young boy had been lying flat on the footpath and two girls were drawing around him with chalk. He said that his client had got into his car and had driven a small distance forward and could not see the children.
He added: “He hears the screaming and immediately reverses. It is very clear, if he hadn’t reversed the vehicle that young boy would be dead today.”
The lawyer said that by reversing his car, Maughan had allowed the boy to get up.
Regarding the CCTV footage, he said: “It is awful footage, I have watched it. It is very difficult viewing.”
The lawyer said his client had left the scene because he believed that his presence there was a distraction.
He said the issue in the case would be the standard of driving and whether it amounted to careless or dangerous. The district judge said it was an “appalling set of facts” and refused Maugan bail.
Maughan will appear in court again on September 23.
