The Court of Appeal quashed a six-year sentence imposed on Michael Ferris for manslaughter and resentenced him to nine years’ imprisonment, with no part suspended. The replacement sentence runs from the date of the original Central Criminal Court sentence.
The appeal was brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993, on the ground that the original sentence was unduly lenient. The original sentence, imposed on 3 December 2018, followed a jury’s manslaughter verdict after Ferris stood trial for murder. The jury verdict was returned on the basis of provocation. The judgment does not set out the jury’s detailed reasoning.
The Court of Appeal said the killing occurred on 4 April 2017 in Ratoo, County Kerry. The court described a long-running dispute over a crow banger used during farming seasons. On the day of the killing, Ferris placed a teleporter across a lane used by the deceased, Anthony O’Mahony. After O’Mahony arrived and sounded his horn, Ferris drove the machine into O’Mahony’s car. The judgment records that Ferris later told gardaí he had intended to kill him.
The Central Criminal Court set a headline sentence of 12 years, reduced it to eight years to account for a manslaughter plea Ferris had offered, and then reduced it by a further two years for mitigation. The trial judge suspended the final year. In the appeal, the DPP argued that the headline sentence should have been higher and challenged the reductions and suspension. Ferris’s counsel argued that the original sentence was within the trial judge’s discretion and that the DPP’s case went beyond the jury’s verdict.
Applying the manslaughter sentencing categories discussed in DPP v Mahon, the Court of Appeal placed the offence high on the culpability scale. It cited the degree of advance consideration, the extreme violence and Ferris’s intention to kill. The court said the headline sentence should have been about 15 years and certainly no less than 14. It considered a one-third reduction excessive in this case, while acknowledging Ferris’s exemplary previous character, age, first-offender status and other mitigation.
The court concluded that the original net sentence of five years failed to reflect the gravity of the offence and that intervention was required. It quashed that sentence and imposed nine years, the least sentence it considered appropriate. The court said suspension was not justified and took account of Ferris’s responsible conduct in custody, including work in the prison vegetable gardens.