Donegal chiropractor has five-year sentence for violent burglary reduced to two on appeal

A Letterkenny chiropractor has had his sentence for burglary reduced on appeal. Kevin Ginty, aged 47, pleaded guilty to burgling the home of a woman with whom he had been in a relationship. He was initially sentenced to five years imprisonment at the Central Criminal Court in July 2013 for the offence committed in April 2010. The Court of Appeal has now reduced the sentence to two years, to run from the date of his conviction. The court found that insufficient weight had been given to Ginty's lack of previous convictions and his standing in the community. Whilst acknowledging the seriousness of the burglary, which involved an assault on the woman in her own home, the appellate court determined that a two-year custodial sentence was more proportionate for a first-time offender in cases of this nature.