The Court of Appeal has refused a Director of Public Prosecutions application to review as unduly lenient an effective five-year prison sentence imposed on Jason Ryan for three drug offences.
The court delivered judgment on 14 March 2016. It said the sentence was lenient, but was not satisfied it amounted to a substantial departure from what was appropriate. It also rejected the DPP’s challenge to the consecutive one-year sentences imposed for the other two counts.
The offences took place between December 2009 and March 2010. On 7 December 2009, Ryan was found with diamorphine valued at an estimated €61,239.15. The judgment says he was arrested and made full admissions to gardaí.
On 19 February 2010, he was stopped and searched on O’Connell Street in Limerick and handed over five deals of diamorphine. He later produced nine more at a garda station. After a medical examination at the regional hospital in Limerick, a package containing 30 grams of diamorphine was recovered from him.
Gardaí searching his apartment on 4 March 2010 found him with 30 deals of diamorphine valued at €750. The judgment records that he was admitted to bail following each arrest.
The DPP argued that the sentencing judge had failed to reflect the scale and persistent nature of the dealing, the respondent’s admitted intention to sell the drugs, and offending while on bail. The DPP also contended that the sentences, individually and together, did not reflect the gravity of the offending.
Ryan accepted that the sentences were lenient but disputed that they were unduly lenient. His counsel relied on his extensive admissions and assistance to gardaí, his heavy heroin addiction, and the comparatively smaller quantities involved in the later counts. Counsel also said the judge was entitled to consider totality and proportionality.
The Court of Appeal set out the legal test for a DPP sentence review: the DPP had to establish a substantial or gross departure from the appropriate sentence, involving an error of principle. The appellate court said it must give proper regard to the sentencing judge’s reasons and discretion.
The court noted that the judge was entitled to depart from the presumptive minimum ten-year sentence for the s. 15A offence. It also expressed concern that Ryan had repeatedly been admitted to bail after admissions to serious offending. However, considering his extensive admissions and heroin addiction, the court was not satisfied the sentence crossed the threshold for intervention.
The DPP’s application was therefore refused. The judgment noted that Ryan had completed the five-year sentence about six months before the DPP filed submissions supporting its application.