The Court of Criminal Appeal allowed a Director of Public Prosecutions application to review sentences imposed on Dominic Dwyer for assault and theft, finding that a two-year sentence suspended for two years was unduly lenient.
The court quashed the suspended sentences and imposed two years’ imprisonment on each count, to run concurrently and date from 3 May 2006. It noted that Dwyer had not been in custody. The judgment said the court would hear counsel on any necessary ancillary order; it does not record such an order.
Dwyer had pleaded guilty in the Circuit Criminal Court to assaulting Steve Pond and stealing his Nokia mobile phone in a laneway in Ennis on 12 March 2004. The original sentences were imposed at Ennis Circuit Criminal Court on 3 May 2006. The sentencing judge suspended them on a €100 bond for good behaviour and keeping the peace for two years.
The judgment said the offences followed the closure of a nightclub. Pond was assaulted and suffered injuries to his head, face, neck and thigh; the court described a degree of gratuitous violence. His phone, valued in the charge at £200, was taken during the attack. Another man, Mr Larkin, was also assaulted and robbed, but no charges concerning that incident were before the sentencing court.
The DPP argued that the sentences were unduly lenient, including because the judge had failed to account properly for aggravating factors and previous convictions, and had given undue weight to compensation. The appeal court said the DPP had to establish a substantial departure from the appropriate sentence before it could intervene. It found that the sentencing judge had wrongly described the previous convictions as “not of great moment” and said convictions from October 2004 could be “effectively ignored”. Although those convictions postdated the offences, they preceded the trial and could be considered, particularly if they indicated a propensity or related to similar crimes.
The appeal court also considered mitigating matters, including Dwyer’s guilty pleas, an apology made through counsel, testimonials, family circumstances and €5,000 brought to court as compensation. The sentencing judge directed that the money be paid to Pond and strongly recommended that he share it with the other injured man. The judgment records Pond agreeing to share it. The appeal court’s order addressed the prison sentences.