Person released after questioning about death of woman suspected to have been moved into driver’s seat after crash

Gardaí are to prepare a file for the DPP after releasing without charge a woman arrested for questioning about the death of a mother of two following a road traffic collision in Cork in February.

Detectives spent 12 hours on Thursday questioning the woman in her 40s about the death of Sheila Dunne, who died after being fatally injured in a single-vehicle crash in Glanmire on February 11th.

The woman had presented by appointment early on Thursday morning at Mayfield Garda Station, where she was arrested and detained under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act 1984.

A team of detectives then spent the day quizzing the woman about the collision near Sarsfield’s Court in Glanmire in which Ms Dunne was found in the driver’s seat by the emergency services.

Gardaí were suspicious that Ms Dunne may not have been the driver and that she may have been moved into the driver’s seat following the crash, which happened at 7.45pm on the day in question.

Ms Dunne, who was in her 50s, suffered serious injuries in the crash and was rushed by ambulance to Cork University Hospital. She died at the hospital on February 13th.

It’s understood garda suspicions that Ms Dunne was not the driver of the SUV when it crashed were supported by the results of a postmortem on Ms Dunne conducted by a state pathologist at CUH.

The SUV involved in the collision was removed from the scene and examined by garda technical experts in the hope that the examination of the vehicle might shed some light on the crash.

It’s understood the garda technical experts also found traces of Ms Dunne’s DNA on the passenger’s airbag, suggesting that Ms Dunne was a passenger in the SUV and not the driver when it crashed.

An informed source said that an examination of mobile phones will be central to the investigation as they hope to establish who was driving the SUV when it went out of control and crashed.

Gardaí have already harvested a considerable amount of CCTV footage from premises in Glanmire village including a filling station, which is understood to have been helpful to them in their investigation.

However, gardaí have still appealed to any road users who were in the Glanmire area and observed a white SUV at the time of the incident to contact them at Glanmire Garda Station on 021 455 6370.

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