Enda Dolan: Family considering asking PPS to appeal sentence given to drunk driver

Enda Dolan was a first-year architecture student at Queen's University

The father of Enda Dolan has said the family are considering asking the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) to appeal the sentence given to the drunk driver who killed him.

Mr Dolan, 18, from County Tyrone, was struck by a van in Belfast in 2014.

David Lee Stewart, 31, of Gray's Park Avenue, Belfast, was jailed on Wednesday.

Stewart was sentenced to three and a half years in prison and another three and a half years on licence.

His parents had said after the judgement that they were "disappointed and disgusted" at the length of the sentence.

On Thursday, Peter Dolan, Enda's father, told the Stephen Nolan Show, that he "wouldn't rule out" asking for the sentence to be appealed.

"You can imagine what happened yesterday, it was all a bit of a shock," he said.

"We just have to sit back, reflect and take a bit of advice on it and take a look at it."

'Heartbroken'

Mr Dolan said he was "speechless" over the sentence given to Stewart.

"This guy drinks and drives, kills somebody and gets three and a half years in prison. That is not a deterrent for anybody in my opinion."

Meanwhile, Enda's mother Niamh Dolan told Good Morning Ulster on Thursday morning that she remained "devastated and heartbroken" from his death.

"It's very hard to explain our loss. The most difficult thing I find is to go about your normal day-to-day activities and we have to do that because of the other children," she said.

"No matter how devastated you feel, you have to put a brave face on, pull yourself together and go out with the others - that's a very hard thing to do sometimes.

"I was lucky, really lucky, that I had a brilliant relationship with Enda. We were very, very close.

"Sometimes I think I'm almost being punished for that. If I hadn't have known my son so well, and got on with him so well, it might have been easier to cope with him not being here."