Irish jockey Oisin Murphy speaks of ‘nightmare’ car crash and drink driving conviction

Oisin Murphy has described his car crash and subsequent conviction for drink driving in England as “a nightmare for everyone involved”.

The four-times champion jockey was fined £70,000 (€80,000) and banned from driving for 20 months having pleaded guilty to one count of driving a motor vehicle while over the prescribed limit of alcohol after the accident in April.

Murphy (29) drove a grey Mercedes A Class off the road and into a tree in Hermitage, Berkshire, at about 12.05am on April 27th.

He had a passenger with him at the time, who was the owner of the car. They were both taken to hospital after the crash.

Murphy was later discharged to take a breathalyser test at a police station at about 7am, which showed a reading of 66mg per 100 millilitres of breath, “just shy of twice above the drink-driving limit” at the time of driving.

Following the conclusion of those court proceedings, the British Horseracing Authority announced the immediate imposition of “an extremely strict set of conditions and monitoring requirements” on Murphy’s riding licence which “must be adhered to at all times”, although the exact details remain confidential.

Speaking at Windsor on Monday evening, Murphy told Sky Sports Racing: “It’s very important not to make that error again, it was a nightmare particularly for everyone involved, not just myself, for everyone else and the people who had to pick up the pieces, my support network. Time is a great healer but I won’t be forgetting about that mistake.

“They [the BHA] never disclose licence information, I’m not the first jockey to drink and drive or commit offences, it’s obviously more high profile because it’s me. Due to the profile I have, those incidents should never occur but the BHA have been