Jason Owens keeps sentence after assault appeal fails

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

Jason Owens’s three-and-a-half-year sentence for assault causing serious harm remained in place after the Court of Appeal dismissed the State’s sentence review application on 9 April 2024.

Owens had pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assaulting Conor Kelly at the Cock & Bull pub in Coolock on 1 January 2020. The sentencing judge imposed three and a half years, with the final 12 months suspended on strict conditions.

The Court of Appeal said the trial judge had stayed within his discretion in setting a seven-year pre-mitigation headline sentence. It concluded that the final sentence and deduction for mitigation did not make the sentence unduly lenient.

The appeal court referred to Owens’s previously blameless life, guilty plea, apology and offer of compensation as mitigating factors. It also noted the serious harm caused to Kelly.