A 31-YEAR-OLD Ukrainian man has been sentenced to six months in prison arising out of the careless driving of a van that led to the death of an unborn baby.

Yurii Dudek, with an address listed in Chernivtsi, Oblast, Ukraine, was handed down the sentence by Judge Cormac Quinn having pleaded guilty at Wexford Circuit Criminal Court.

The incident occurred at Ballygillane Big on the main Wexford/Rosslare Road on 27 January, 2024.

The court was told 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, Glynn Garda Station, gave evidence at yesterday’s sitting of the court that the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van, being driven by the accused 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.

Garda O’Flynn said that the vehicle that was rear-ended was then pushed into oncoming traffic, hitting the car in which Saoirse Aylward and her partner Nathan Ferguson-Murphy were travelling.

The court also 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.

At today’s sitting of the court, Judge Quinn said the victim impact statements delivered 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 guilty 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, Judge Quinn said a custodial sentence in this case was ‘inevitable and appropriate’.

Judge Quinn said the maximum sentence 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 said he would credit Dudek for any time already spent in custody and would not be suspending his drivers licence as he used this for his volunteering work in aid of Ukraine.

One of the survivors of the crash, 31-year-old Saoirse Aylward, has now launched a campaign for legislative reform to address what she has described as a ‘gap’ in the law.

In a statement issued following the sentencing, 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’s actions that night for the rest of my life.

“My hope 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.”

Speaking to RTÉ this afternoon, Ms Aylward said she approached Dudek “to let him know that I wanted to offer him my forgiveness”.

“I felt like it was something that I could offer him,” she added.

“I’m aware that we are both going to have life sentences from what happened that day and the tragedy of my son’s death.

“I’m aware that he didn’t intend to set out that day to cause the death of my child and unfortunately, that’s where we are.”

She said she has had a lot of “mixed emotions and mixed feelings” but that her “frustration has been more with the justice system and how I feel it has failed me as a mother and my son, rather than Yurri.”

She said it was a “massive shock” to learn that there was no legislation in Ireland to support a charge for Jax’s death.

“We were already struggling so much and 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 that some Senators and TDs intend to support Jax’s Law and remarked: “As a mother, you want to be able to care for your child and do whatever you can for them, and I lost the opportunity to have those moments with my son.

“So this campaign is my way to care for him and to carry his memory and his legacy and for his life to have meaning.”