The Court of Appeal has ruled that a person who turns 18 before a deferred sentencing hearing cannot be given a detention order under section 144 of the Children Act 2001. It said the only sentencing option available to the Circuit Court in the circumstances was a probation order under the Probation Act 1907.
The ruling came in a consultative case stated from the Circuit Court, which asked about its sentencing powers after a young defendant turned 18 between the deferral of sentence and the resumed hearing. The Court of Appeal answered the legal questions; the judgment does not record the Circuit Court making a final sentence at that resumed hearing.
The defendant, born in February 2004, had pleaded guilty in July 2021 to offences arising from an incident in Dublin city centre in September 2020. The allegations included threatening a taxi driver with a box-cutter, taking the taxi and driving it a short distance. The Court of Appeal’s account of the background said he had no previous convictions and had faced significant difficulties, including substance misuse and a troubled family life.
In January 2022, while he was still under 18, the Circuit Court judge indicated intended detention terms totalling 54 months across four counts. The judge deferred the order under section 144 of the Children Act and set a resumed hearing for 30 March 2022. The defendant turned 18 in February. After he left a residential drug treatment programme and was later found to be in continuing breach of bail conditions, he was remanded in custody.
At the resumed hearing, the parties disagreed over whether the court could use adult sentencing powers, including imprisonment, or remained limited to the options in section 144(9). The Court of Appeal said that section provided a restricted set of choices: impose the deferred detention period or a shorter period, suspend detention in whole or in part, or impose an eligible community sanction. But the statute did not authorise detention of someone who was no longer a child, or create an implied power to impose imprisonment.
The court concluded that the other community sanctions were unavailable in the circumstances, leaving a probation order under section 2 of the Probation Act 1907 as the sole option. Because it found no power to impose detention, it said questions about suspending detention or attaching conditions to a suspended period did not arise. It described the statutory outcome as unsatisfactory but said it could not interpret the legislation differently.