Court reserves judgment on DPP appeal over Stephen O’Connor’s firearms sentence

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

The Court of Appeal reserved judgment on the Director of Public Prosecutions’ appeal against the fully suspended four-year sentence imposed on Stephen O’Connor for unlawful possession of firearms. The proceedings were reported on 22 October 2021.

O’Connor, of Carndonagh Lawns, Donaghmede, pleaded guilty to unlawful possession of firearms at his address on 7 September 2019. He had no previous convictions.

Dublin Circuit Criminal Court judge Elma Sheahan imposed the four-year suspended sentence in May 2021. At the appeal, Garrett McCormack BL said the State did not dispute the length of the sentence but argued that it should not have been suspended in full.

Detective Garda Jonathan Griffin had told the trial court that gardaí found two semi-automatic pistols and 15 rounds of ammunition inside a Henry Hoover in a van parked behind O’Connor’s house. McCormack told the appeal court that both weapons were loaded, in working order and stored for easy access by criminals.

For O’Connor, Fiona Murphy said he had allowed his van to be used to store weapons, but none of his DNA was found on them. She said he was extremely vulnerable following a breakdown, had serious mental-health difficulties and had twice attempted to take his own life before the incident. Two of his brothers had died by suicide. Murphy said he had been preyed on and that the trial judge had not erred in fully suspending the sentence.

Judge Sheahan had accepted that a criminal figure who knew of O’Connor’s vulnerabilities had used and taken advantage of him. Presiding appeal judge Justice George Birmingham called it a very serious case and said the court would reserve judgment.