A 25-YEAR-OLD man who drank vodka and took cocaine before his car killed a toddler has been sent to jail for five years.
Ciaran Lane was sentenced on Tuesday for dangerous driving causing the death of the little girl in Dublin's Phoenix Park last year.
He was also handed a 20-year driving ban.
He told gardaí he had drunk a litre of vodka and taken two grams of cocaine before his car hit Vanessa Siatka, who was almost two years old.
Judge Pat McCartan said it was as bad a case of dangerous driving as he had ever encountered.
Kasia Siatka and her daughter were in Phoenix Park on Easter Monday of last year when the young girl was hit by Lane's car.
He was driving erratically, making handbrake turns and driving on the wrong side of the road.
Judge McCartan said Vanessa had no chance.
Lane, of Ashington Avenue in Cabra, Dublin, has eight previous convictions and is also the father of a young boy of the same age.
The judge said he took into account his remorse and his guilty plea.
He sentenced Lane to seven years with the final two years suspended on condition that he does not take drugs or alcohol after he is released.
