The Court of Appeal reduced from 10 years to three the period during which the final 18 months of Dean Hogan’s criminal damage sentence is suspended. It quashed and reimposed the sentence on the same terms, changing only that operational period.
In a judgment delivered on 14 October 2022, the court considered Hogan’s appeal against the severity of sentences imposed on 18 March 2021. He had pleaded guilty to criminal damage, assaulting a peace officer and assault. The assault and breach of a safety order were taken into consideration in sentencing; the criminal damage sentence was five years, with its final 18 months suspended. A concurrent three-year sentence was imposed for assaulting a peace officer.
The criminal damage occurred in a home in Birr, Co Offaly, on 19 July 2020. The property’s landlady estimated damage to doors, furniture, kitchen units and appliances at about €1,550. Gardaí found Hogan unconscious in the attic and resuscitated him. The following morning, he headbutted a Garda who was restraining him, causing injury to the Garda’s mouth and gums.
The sentencing judge had set a headline sentence of seven and a half years for the criminal damage before reducing it for mitigation. Hogan argued that the headline was too high and that the sentencing judge had given undue weight to aggravating factors and insufficient credit for mitigation. The Director of Public Prosecutions opposed the appeal, arguing that the sentence reflected the aggravating circumstances and that the mitigation reduction was already substantial.
The Court of Appeal agreed that the headline sentence was too high and that this was an error in principle. It also found that treating the assault on the Garda as an aggravating factor was an error, because an element intrinsic to an offence cannot itself aggravate that offence. That error did not justify intervention in the three-year sentence, which the court said was within the sentencing judge’s discretion.
The court did not change the five-year criminal damage sentence or the 18-month suspended portion. It found that a 10-year suspension period was disproportionate to the suspended term and changed that period to three years, on the same conditions. The court said it would otherwise have imposed the same sentence on the criminal damage count.