Navy Lieutenant who bragged he was ‘allergic to driving slowly’ convicted of harmful driving

A Royal Navy Lieutenant who bragged ‘I’m allergic to driving slowly’ as he sped at 113mph has been convicted of dangerous driving.

Lieutenant Tiarnan Gallagher, 30, made two Navy colleagues, who were passengers in his car, ‘fear for their safety’ as he raced up a motorway in a high-powered BMW to the Faslane naval base near Helensburgh, Dunbartonshire.

Lt Gallagher was said to have ‘weaved in and out of traffic’ erratically, and sped up to cars before braking and undertaking them.

He also drove with one hand on the wheel as he shuffled music and sent texts on his phone.

Sub-Lieutenant Henry Wilson and Sub-Lieutenant Alexander Wardlow were so concerned they tried to persuade him to let them drive, but Lt Gallagher was ‘hellbent’ on staying at the wheel.

At Bulford Military Court, Wilts, he was found guilty of one count of dangerous driving.

Lt Gallagher was driving a rental BMW 3 Series on 27 October 2024, after completing three weeks of training at HMS Raleigh in Cornwall.

The three servicemen had to travel to HMNB Clyde in Scotland, known as Faslane, to complete a final week of training.

Lieutenant Tiarnan Gallagher was found guilty of dangerous driving

The incident happened as Gallagher drove to the Faslane naval base near Helensburgh

Sub Lt Wilson said he drove the first leg of the 500-mile trip and Lt Gallagher told him to ‘put his foot down and see what the car could do’.

Sub Lt Wilson said he replied: ‘The car will do 70 miles per hour.’

The pair stopped at Michaelwood Services near Bristol and swapped places, which is when Lt Gallagher’s dangerous driving supposedly began.

Sub Lt Wilson said he was ‘worried’ at the speed his colleague was driving, even reporting that he at one time reached 113mph on the M5 motorway.

He said that Lt Gallagher was on his phone sending texts and shuffling through his music with ‘one hand on the wheel’, and that he would speed up to cars and suddenly brake before undertaking them.

Sub Lt Wilson said it left him with ‘white knuckles on the dashboard’ when Lt Gallagher repeatedly refused to slow down.

They reached Uttoxeter at about 2.30pm and picked up their colleague, Sub Lt Wardlow, whom Sub Lt Wilson said he had told about Lt Gallagher’s driving when the lieutenant was out of earshot.

They agreed not to let him drive again and shared the next leg of the journey between them.

However, he criticised their driving, and Sub Lt Wardlow told the court that Lt Gallagher kept saying ‘someone hasn’t done a speed awareness course before.’

And when they stopped for petrol at around 19:30 in the Scottish town of Gretna, both sublieutenants had to leave the car. One refilled the petrol while the other went in to pay.

HMNB Clyde, also known as Faslane, houses the Royal Navy’s Submarine Service and nuclear deterrent as well as the new generation of hunter-killer submarines

They said that whilst outside the car, Lt Gallagher ‘climbed’ from the back seat into the driver’s seat and refused to leave.

The two officers described how the senior officer was ‘hellbent’ on driving.

Later, when they merged onto the M8, they said that Lt Gallagher drove across a solid white line too early and was ‘a metre or two’ from hitting the back of a lorry.

Both sublieutenants described it as ‘unpleasant’ and ‘dangerous driving’, and said they wouldn’t ever want to let him drive again, with one calling the experience ‘frightening’.

Prosecuting, Lieutenant Commander Luis Canosa said Lt Gallagher was ‘weaving in and out of traffic’, while using his phone to ‘send texts and shuffle his music’.

He said the sublieutenants decided to take him off the insurance to stop him from driving again, and when they told the police about his driving, Lt Gallagher denied driving unsafely.

Mark Karpinski, defending, said that Lt Gallagher’s colleagues had made up the allegations.

Lt Gallagher was found guilty of dangerous driving after a two-day trial.