AN OMAGH woman who racked up 46 traffic offences – the majority of them in Fermanagh – over a period of four years will be sentenced next month.
Anne Joyce, 33, of Culmore Park, Omagh, appeared at Enniskillen Magistrates Court.
A total of nine police officers spent much of the day in Court to appear as witnesses for the Prosecution only to be excused following the withdrawal of a number of charges relating to motor insurance.
Of the charges that were accepted, 26 were for not having a valid driving licence, five for driving without insurance, two counts of failing to produce a driving licence, two counts of making a false declaration to obtain insurance, two counts of driving with a defective tyre and two counts of not having a vehicle test certificate.
Other charges included one count each for fraud by false representation, failure to declare obtaining a certificate of insurance, withholding information to the obtaining of a certificate insurance, attempted theft, failure to produce a vehicle test certificate, driving while disqualified, not displaying L plates and being an unaccompanied learner driver.
The vast majority offences were to have taken place between 2018 and 2022 within Enniskillen, Ederney, Irvinestown, Kesh, Ballinamallard.
The rest were committed in Omagh, Killen, Castlederg in Tyrone and in Portadown, Armagh.
Earlier in the day, both the Prosecution and Joyce’s solicitor, Oliver Roche, had a protracted debate in Court regarding a search warrant used by police to search the defendant’s property in 2022 in relation to the fraud by false representation charge.
Mr Roche questioned both the seven-month time gap it took for him to be shown the warrant and the validity of it given he had only first seen it on the day of contest. He added that he was “entitled to challenge the authenticity of the warrant and the search itself”.
District Judge Alana McSorley informed Mr Roche that warrant validity needed a judicial review and is “not the remit of this Court”. She added that the evidence obtained from the police search was a counterfeit driving licence.
Mr Roche replied, “that is for the Prosecution to prove”. The Prosecution responded by saying that the licence “was counterfeit”.
Judge McSorley then told Mr Roche that – in reference to this case being before the Court for more than a year – “the Defence can’t keep creating hurdles to hope that the Prosecution might fall. I am hearing this issue today”.
Court was adjourned as the Prosecution and Mr Roche then decided which charges would stand and which ones would be dropped.
When Court was reconvened, Judge McSorley took note of the accepted charges and commissioned a pre-sentence report on Joyce.
The case was adjourned for sentencing at Enniskillen Magistrates Court for November 15.
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