Larry McCarthy has sentence cut for cyclist assault and threat

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

The Court of Appeal suspended the final 15 months of Larry McCarthy’s six-year sentence for assaulting a cyclist and threatening to use unlawful violence. The proceedings were reported on 11 June 2018.

McCarthy pleaded not guilty at the non-jury Special Criminal Court to assaulting David Foran and threatening to use unlawful violence along with two others. Both offences occurred at Cornmarket Villas on 25 November 2014. The court found him guilty of both and, on 31 July 2017, Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy sentenced him to six years’ imprisonment. She sat with Judge Gerard Haughton and Judge Gerard Griffin.

In his initial statement to gardaí, Foran said he had been beaten and that McCarthy had stabbed him in the leg. McCarthy’s counsel, Barry White SC, said Foran’s purported identification of McCarthy in that statement was the sole evidence against his client. White said Foran later wished to withdraw his complaint because he realised who McCarthy was only when they were in court on the same day in separate matters. He argued that the trial court had erred in admitting the statement.

McCarthy’s conviction appeal was dismissed. Mr Justice Alan Mahon said the Court of Appeal would have reached the same conclusion as the trial court on the statement’s admission.

In the sentence appeal, Mr Justice Mahon said the sentencing court had attached excessive weight to a 1999 violent-disorder conviction and wrongly excluded almost all mitigating factors, including positive testimonials and difficult family circumstances. He sat with Mr Justice George Birmingham and Mr Justice John Edwards. McCarthy undertook to enter a good-behaviour bond for two years after his release.