Court of Appeal increases Aaron Brady’s sentence for perverting justice to five years

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

The Court of Appeal ruled on 31 July 2026 that the three-year sentence imposed on Aaron Brady for perverting the course of justice was unduly lenient and replaced it with a five-year sentence. The new term is to begin after his 14-year sentence for robbery and run alongside his life sentence, with a 40-year minimum term, for capital murder.

Brady pleaded guilty in April 2024 to embarking on a course of conduct tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice. A second count, of conspiracy to do an act tending and intended to pervert the course of public justice, was taken into consideration. The Special Criminal Court imposed the original three-year sentence.

The appeal court found that the original sentence gave excessive weight to the absence of violence or threats and insufficient weight to deterrence. It set a nine-year headline sentence, reduced that to six and a half years for Brady’s guilty plea, then reduced it further to five years under the totality principle. Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy delivered the court’s judgment.

The case arose from interference with witnesses during Brady’s murder trial. He recorded footage of a garda interview with Ronan Flynn, which was later published on social media. Flynn did not give evidence. Brady also sent portions of Daniel Cahill’s statement to fellow prisoner Dean Byrne, who passed them on in an effort to discourage Cahill from giving evidence. Brady had told Byrne he did not want that material circulated, a point the prosecution accepted. Cahill subsequently gave evidence.