The Court of Appeal has upheld Noel Kinsella’s sentence for an aggravated burglary at a family home in Edgeworthstown, Co Longford, in October 2015. It dismissed his appeal and left in place a nine-year prison term, with the final two years suspended on conditions.
The burglary happened shortly after 1am on 11 October 2015 at 25 Cloverwell. The house was occupied by six people, including two children aged five and three and a 74-year-old man who used a wheelchair. The judgment said Kinsella and co-accused Ryan, whose appeal was withdrawn, wore masks, helmets and high-visibility jackets. Kinsella held a steel bar and Ryan a knife.
According to evidence summarised in the judgment, Ryan threatened the elderly man with a knife and took the male householder upstairs at knifepoint while demanding money. The householder’s wife was also brought upstairs and told their children would be stabbed unless money was found. The couple put laptops and phones in a bag. The householder secretly called his mother-in-law to alert gardaí.
A garda arriving at the house saw two masked men leave. Both ran. The garda caught Kinsella as he tried to climb a garden wall and arrested him. Ryan was arrested less than an hour later after a garda stopped a car he was driving.
Kinsella pleaded guilty in the Circuit Court on 9 February 2016. On 12 May, the sentencing judge set a 12-year headline sentence and imposed nine years’ imprisonment, suspending the final two years. The suspension was subject to a €500 peace bond, probation supervision for two years after release, abstaining from alcohol and drugs for two years, and engaging with addiction counselling in prison. The sentence was ordered to run consecutively to a separate five-year sentence, of which the final 18 months had been suspended.
On appeal, Kinsella argued that his sentence was too severe, that his previous convictions should not have aggravated it, that mitigating circumstances and totality were not properly considered, and that the reference to him wielding a steel bar was wrong.
The Court of Appeal said the 12-year headline sentence was appropriate given the seriousness of the offence and upheld the sentencing judge’s assessment that both men shared a common design and were equally culpable. It found Kinsella’s previous convictions similar and serious enough to be treated as aggravating, and said the sentencing judge had considered proportionality and totality. The court considered increasing the time Kinsella would serve by removing the suspension, but decided not to do so. It concluded there was no basis to reduce the sentence and would not interfere with it.