Posted by South East Correspondent
A 33-year-old woman who lost her unborn son in a crash caused by a man who was today jailed for six months for careless driving, has said her “frustration is more with the justice system” than with him.
Yurii Dudek, with an address listed in Ukraine, was sentenced for careless driving causing serious bodily harm.
After the sentence was handed down today, Saoirse Aylward approached Dudek and said that she forgave him.
Dudek held her hand and apologised, and Ms Aylward asked him to remember her son, Jax.
Speaking on RTÉ’s News At One, Ms Aylward said: “I went over to approach him to let him know that I wanted to offer him my forgiveness.
“I felt like it was something that I could offer him. I am aware that we are both going to have life sentences from what happened that day and the tragedy of my son’s death.
“I am aware that he didn’t intend probably to set out that day, obviously, to cause the death of my child and unfortunately that is where we are.
“Throughout the experience, I have had a lot of mixed emotions, mixed feelings but my frustration has been more with the justice system and how it has failed me as a mother and my son, rather than at Yurii.”
Watch: Woman calls for law change after unborn son died following crash
Ms Aylward said it was a massive shock to hear that her unborn son was not recognised as a victim.
She said she was told “despite the garda recommendation that there was a dangerous driving charge brought for Jax”, that the DPP had come back to say that there was no legislation in Ireland to support that charge and “they would not be able to bring forward any justice for Jax in that manner”.
Ms Aylward said she could not describe the level of trauma that she experienced to hear that.
“It was absolutely heartbreaking. It shattered our world to be honest, we were already grieving, already struggling so much day to day,” she said.
“Then to hear that our son’s life didn’t matter in the eyes of the law and that he would never get that recognition … it just absolutely broke us,” she added.
Ms Aylward earlier told Wexford Circuit Court about her frustration and deep sorrow that her unborn son could not be recognised as a separate victim in the road traffic collision under Irish law.
The incident occurred on the main Rosslare to Wexford Road in the townland of Drinagh on 27 January 2024.
The court heard that the accused was in Ireland at the time collecting medical supplies and humanitarian aid for the Ukrainian army and people impacted by the war in his home country.
Garda John O’Flynn of Glynn Garda Station previously gave evidence that the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van that was being driven by Dudek at the time had rear-ended another vehicle that had stopped to make a right turn into the driveway of a house directly off the N25.
The vehicle that was rear-ended was then pushed into oncoming traffic, hitting the car in which Ms Aylward and her partner Nathan Ferguson Murphy were travelling.
The court heard that Ms Aylward, who was 31 weeks pregnant at the time, had to have an emergency C-section after being brought by ambulance to Wexford General Hospital.
When she woke up, she was told that her son Jax was stillborn.
Today, Judge Cormac Quinn said the victim impact statements delivered by Ms Aylward and Mr Ferguson Murphy yesterday were the most “compelling, distressing and moving statements that one could hear”.
The judge said there were several mitigating factors in this case, including that the accused’s age, his “valuable” plea of guilt which saved the case having to go to trial, and the fact that Dudek had no previous convictions in Ireland or Ukraine.
Judge Quinn also said that Dudek was distraught following the incident and was genuinely remorseful for what had happened.
However, the judge said a custodial sentence in this case was “inevitable and appropriate”.
The judge said a maximum sentence in a case of careless driving was one of two years.
He set a headline sentence of nine months and sentenced Dudek to six months in prison after taking the mitigating factors into account.
Judge Quinn also said he would credit Dudek for any time already spent in custody, and he would not be suspending his driver’s licence as he used this for his volunteering work in aid of Ukraine.
Ms Aylward said legislative reform was needed to address what she described as a “gap” in the law.
In a statement, Ms Aylward said: “‘Jax’s Law’ proposes that babies who die as a result of fatal road collisions during pregnancy are recognised in their own right within the justice system.
“This was not a single moment in my life. It has altered every part of my present and every part of my future. I have been given a life sentence and will live with the consequences of someone else’s actions that night for the rest of my life.
“My hope now is that some good can come from this, and that no other mother, no other grieving family, will experience the additional pain of discovering that their child’s life is not formally recognised within our justice system.”
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