The Court of Appeal imposed revised sentences in a review under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993, replacing suspended portions of sentences previously imposed by Waterford Circuit Court. The ex tempore judgment was delivered on 7 December 2015.
The court said it had previously given its reasons for considering the Circuit Court sentences unduly lenient. It noted that, since that decision, the respondent had been sentenced in the United Kingdom to seven years’ imprisonment for serious similar crimes committed before the offences under review. He was serving that sentence at the time of the appeal judgment.
The court said it would not add any sentence to the UK term. It instead ordered three years’ imprisonment in place of the original sentence of three years with two and a half years suspended. For attempted defilement under the 2006 Act, it ordered four years’ imprisonment in place of four years with three and a half years suspended.
The two revised sentences are to run concurrently from 7 December 2015. The court directed that they be reduced by the time the respondent had actually served in prison in Ireland for these offences. The judgment does not specify the length of that credit or the resulting release date.