The Court of Appeal upheld Samantha Sinnott’s 12-month suspended sentence for money laundering, finding that the DPP had not met the threshold for an undue-leniency review. It quashed the sentences imposed on Ciarán Long and Bernard Joyce and substituted custodial terms. The court delivered judgment on 4 February 2021 in three applications brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993.
Sinnott had pleaded guilty to one money-laundering count after moving €109,890 from a safe at a property in Foulksmills to her home in Ballymitty, County Wexford. She told Gardaí she suspected the cash was proceeds of crime and had moved it to protect her partner. The court noted that she promptly disclosed where the money was, cooperated with Gardaí and had no previous convictions. It considered her conduct a rash, unpremeditated act and held that her wholly suspended 12-month sentence was within the trial judge’s discretion.
Long had pleaded guilty after Gardaí found €201,000 at his Barntown home. He said he had collected the money for another person and was to receive €400. The sentencing judge imposed a two-and-a-half-year sentence, suspended in full. The Court of Appeal considered the four-year headline sentence too lenient, saying a six-year starting point was appropriate given the sum and the evidence that Long assisted a drugs gang, although his role was low-level. It quashed the original sentence and imposed two-and-a-half years’ imprisonment. The court said it would hear submissions on when that sentence should begin; the judgment does not specify a commencement date.
Joyce pleaded guilty after Gardaí found €911,600 concealed in his camper van near the Foulksmills property. The sentencing judge set a seven-year headline sentence, imposed five years and suspended the final two. The Court of Appeal found that sentence unduly lenient and quashed it. It resentenced Joyce to four years’ actual custody, taking account of mitigation, time since the original sentence and the possibility that he was close to release or had recently been released. The term was to take account of time already served.
The court described the sums involved, each respondent’s role and any connection to organised crime as central sentencing considerations. It stressed that money laundering can support serious criminal activity, while noting that mitigation may justify substantial reductions from a headline sentence.