The Court of Appeal has imposed custodial sentences on Emma Fehily after finding that wholly suspended sentences for forging documents used in a Cork Circuit Criminal Court sentencing hearing were seriously outside the appropriate range.
Fehily had pleaded guilty to two counts of forgery and two counts of attempting to pervert the course of justice. In June 2020 she received concurrent 12-month sentences, all suspended.
The offences arose from an earlier sentencing hearing in November 2018, when Fehily was before Cork Circuit Criminal Court over 40 thefts and one attempted theft. Two documents were presented as mitigation. One purported to confirm full-time employment with Rockwell Automation. The second purported to be a positive character reference from the company. Both carried what appeared to be the signature of its human resources manager.
Garda inquiries later established that the documents were not genuine. Fehily eventually admitted composing them herself and using computer-lifted signatures.
The Director of Public Prosecutions argued that the suspended sentences failed to reflect the gravity of an attempt to mislead a court. The Court of Appeal agreed. It said a court must protect its own process and that flagrant attempts to pervert justice ordinarily require significant custody unless substantial mitigation exists.
The appeal took a further turn when documents submitted for resentencing were checked. A purported 2018 counselling letter and a purported 2018 medical report were found to be false. The court accepted that Fehily's solicitor and counsel had acted in good faith, but found that Fehily knew the documents were false and had not warned them.
The court selected a five-year headline sentence for each offence and reduced it by 18 months for mitigation, including early guilty pleas, anxiety disorder, gambling addiction and progress after release. It then suspended the final 18 months of the resulting three-and-a-half-year sentence, leaving a two-year custodial component, subject to good behaviour and Probation Service supervision after release.