Killer drunk-driver Thomas O'Brien who spent 12 years on the run is finally back in jail in Northern Ireland
A killer driver who was on the run for 12 years after he absconded from a temporary prison release was handed a one-year jail sentence today.
But jailing Thomas O’Brien at Antrim Crown Court, judge Fiona Bagnall ordered that the 46-year-old will not begin his one-year sentence until he has served the remainder of the sentence he received in 2009.
Commenting that she understood O’Brien still has around nine months left to serve for the fatal crash, judge Bagnall said the absconding sentence would be “meaningless” if she did not make it consecutive.
At an earlier hearing O’Brien, listed as of no fixed abide in Cork, entered a guilty plea to being unlawfully at large on July 16, 2012.
During her sentencing remarks today, judge Bagnall outlined how O’Brien had been handed sentences totalling nine years for offences of causing death and grievous bodily injury by dangerous driving.
That case related to a crash on Christmas Eve in 2005 when O’Brien got behind the wheel of a car despite, according to witness statements, having consumed at least 10 drinks of cider and vodka followed by some shots of Goldschlager.
The accident happened on the Castlederg Road, Ederney, near the border of western Co Tyrone and northern Co Fermanagh.
The case was extensively covered by the Impartial Reporter newspaper.
It described O’Brien as a traveller, originally from Limerick, with an address in a caravan on the Muckross Road, Kesh, who was already disqualified from driving at the time of the crash (and had accumulated a string of driving convictions under various aliases).
It says he had five passengers in his car, and had ignored pleas to slow down.
He was drinking beer when he lost control, and the car ended up on its roof.
A 36-year-old passenger, Paul Flanagan, was tragically killed and two other people were seriously injured.
The Impartial Reporter adds that whenever help arrived at the crash site in the form of the father of one of the injured passengers, O’Brien stole the man’s car and fled to the Republic, where he remained at large for about three years (some of which was spent in jail).
He was eventually extradited to Northern Ireland in 2008 and was given a nine-year sentence, along with a 20-year driving ban, by judge David McFarland at Dungannon Crown Court.
He then absconded whilst on pre-release from HMP Magilligan in July 2012.
In January 2023 the PSNI received information that O’Brien was living in Cork under an alias of John O’Donnell so an international warrant was issued.
When the Gardai tried to effect that warrant on August 1 this year, O’Brien boarded a ferry to Wales using that alias but he was arrested on August 3 when the ferry arrived.
Imposing the 12 month sentence, Judge Bagnall said the length of time O’Brien had been at large was an aggravating feature but that he was entitled to credit for his guilty plea.