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Disgraced GP gets driving ban after necking six whiskeys before getting into Mercedes

71-year-old James Cassidy was at one time the doctor for Tyrone GAA

Today at 12:42

A disgraced GP was handed a two year driving ban today after he necked six shots of whiskey in less than half an hour.

Imposing the driving ban as well as fines amounting to £550 and allowing 71-year-old James Peter Cassidy four months to pay, District Judge Rosie Watters said it was clear the defendant “has a problem with alcohol.”

Cassidy, from the Killyman Road in Dungannon but who was at one time the doctor for Tyrone GAA and who practiced in Dundalk before he was struck off, had earlier entered guilty pleas to a total of four offences, all committed on 9 November this year, including driving while unfit, driving with neither a licence nor insurance, failing to provide a specimen.

The court heard that the manager of a restaurant in Lisburn alerted police that Thursday afternoon after a customer “drank six measures of Jamesons whiskey in 25 minutes” and then got behind the wheel of a Mercedes C250 car.

A prosecuting lawyer said police were lead to the carpark of Sprucefield shopping centre where officers found Cassidy sitting behind the wheel but despite being asked, he failed to provide a specimen of breath.

The court heard that Cassidy has previous criminal convictions including a previous drink driving in may 2009 and conspiracy to commit forgery in 2014.

What the court did not hear however was that the forgery offences related to Cassidy forging the £1.5million will of spinster pub owner Catherine ‘Kitty’ Haughey between 2004 and 2007.

The 81-year-old, who owned Larkin’s pub in Forkhill in south Armagh, left cash, land and property worth £1.5m on her death in 2004 but suspicions were raised when Ms Haughey’s will was changed two weeks before her death.

In offences described as akin to a “Hollywood scripted” conspiracy, Newry Crown Court heard how Ms Haughy’s forged, handwritten last will attempted to redirect the childless widow’s fortune from charitable organisations and a female friend to persons “in the business of becoming millionaires”.

Having ran the South Armagh pub with her brother and sister, Kitty was found dead in the pub’s living quarters in December 2004. Concerns were raised about her will after it emerged it had been changed two weeks before her death and although her body was exhumed in 2007 amid fresh suspicions surrounding her death, a post-mortem examination later confirmed she died of natural causes.

Cassidy, alongside David McQuaid (47), a quantity surveyor from Lisnaree Road, Lisnaree, Banbridge and the the widow’s godson Francis Tiernan (62) of Carrickasticken Road, Forkhill – pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy to use a false document.

A fourth accused, Dr Cassidy’s secretary Niamh Hearty, was unanimously found not guilty of forging the widow’s signature.

During Hearty’s trial, the court heard how Miss Haughey’s friend who had been the intended beneficiary of the will, brought her suspicions of Kitty’s falsified signatures on a forged will to the Garda in the Republic.

The Garda investigation gained speed when a falsified patient file at the GP surgery of Dr Cassidy was generated at the behest of a letter said to be from a Dundalk solicitors.

The details of the GP’s letter were constructed to read that an examination of Ms Haughey had been done by a now deceased doctor shortly before the publican’s death.

The diagnosis was to say that Ms Haughey had been a healthy woman right up to her death. The letter was declared to be false in its entirety in 2008.

In 2014 Cassidy was handed an 18 month prison sentence which was suspended for three years and then in November 2018, he was struck off the medical register over failings to comply with conditions attached to his registration, including to complete an alcohol awareness programme.

In court today, Cassidy’s defence solicitor conceded the driving offences are “pitiful behaviour, he recognises that.”

“He clearly has an alcohol problem but this was an extraordinary occurrence,” said the solicitor revealing that while he is in receipt of the state pension of £600 per month, Cassidy “lost a significant amount of money in the financial crash of 2008, almost £1million of investments completely wiped out.”

“I couldn’t do what he did,” said DJ Watters, “this was at lunchtime on a Thursday and I don’t think I couldn’t actually six measures of Jamesons in 25 minutes – there would not even be a competition there.”