Customs officer taken for a ride on the bonnet of a car

A customs officer was carried on the bonnet of a car by a woman from Donegal Ireland after the car failed to stop. The woman, who drove through the checkpoint, with the customs officer on her car was fined 350 Euros for “careless driving” though I think it's safe to say, it was a little more than that.

Caroline Duggan, who is 33 and from Manorcunnigham, had one of her children, out of three, in the car with her when she failed to come to a stop at the Checkpoint, the incident actually happened in October 2011, just over a year ago. This wasn't the only thing Caroline did that was branded as careless, before this incident she took over a schoolbus and a number of cars on a white line to try and avoid the initial customs control.

Though an office tried to stop her from doing so, she carried on driving at speed at the checkpoint and then one of the officers was pushed onto the car bonnet of her car. Though realising that the officer was on the bonnet, Mrs Duggan still didn't stop for around 20 metres, screaming at the officer to get off her car.

Then when the car had finally stopped and after the officer was freed from his ordeal after 20 metres, Mrs Duggan refused to get out. Luckily the customs officer was not injured during this incident, although this could have of course been a completely different story.

Last week at Letterkenny District Court, Duggan was ordered to pay a 350 Euro fine for her careless driving. The Court also heard that only two days before this incident she had been stopped at another customs checkpoint and had lied, saying her name was Caroline Martin and had given a false address along with that name. Mrs Duggan has since sold her car to raise the 1,000 Euro penalty. There are no further details to explain why Mrs Duggan was trying to avoid customers checkpoints twice within a matter of days.