The Court of Appeal has dismissed Damien Fitzgerald and Bill O’Driscoll’s appeals against the severity of their eight-year prison sentences for causing serious harm to Karol O’Keeffe.
In a judgment delivered on 22 January 2018, the court found no error of principle in the sentences imposed for the assault. The men’s robbery convictions had already been overturned in a separate judgment in July 2017, but the court said that decision did not affect the sentences for assault.
A jury convicted both men in May 2015 of causing serious harm to Mr O’Keeffe and robbing him of his €50 mobile phone. The sentencing judge imposed eight years on each count, to run concurrently. The Court of Appeal later quashed the robbery convictions because the jury should have been given the option of considering alternative verdicts of handling or possessing stolen property. It upheld the convictions for assault causing serious harm. The current appeal concerned only the severity of the sentences.
The appellants argued that their sentences were disproportionate compared with co-accused Mark O’Driscoll, whom a detective had described as the main thrust of the violence. They also argued that the sentencing judge had treated the robbery as an aggravating factor and had not given enough weight to their alcohol addictions.
The court said Mark O’Driscoll had a worse record for assault, but the appellants had many more convictions overall, including convictions for violent offences. It also noted that Mark O’Driscoll had pleaded guilty and co-operated, while the appellants had not. The court considered these differences sufficient to justify the sentences.
On the robbery argument, the court said the sentencing judge had sentenced for robbery separately, imposing concurrent sentences, and had not treated it as an aggravating factor in sentencing for assault. Quashing the robbery convictions and the related sentences therefore did not undermine the assault sentences.
The court also found that the sentencing judge had taken the men’s alcohol problems into account. No specific proposals for rehabilitation from alcohol dependence or criminality had been put forward at the sentencing hearing. Both men had committed the offences while on temporary release, and the Court of Appeal accepted that the sentencing judge was entitled to conclude there was no basis to suspend part of either sentence to encourage rehabilitation.
The judgment recounted the severe and lasting effects of the assault on Mr O’Keeffe, including a traumatic brain injury, continuing fatigue and memory problems, and loss of smell and taste. The court concluded that the assault merited the sentences imposed and dismissed both appeals.