The Court of Appeal set aside a sentence imposed on a man who pleaded guilty to helping dispose of evidence after a murder, finding that the sentencing judge had not sufficiently accounted for duress affecting his offending and time spent in custody. It imposed a four-year sentence, with two years suspended, and suspended any remaining balance beyond the time he had already spent in jail.
The appellant had pleaded guilty to two counts of an indictment under sections 72 and 74 of the Criminal Law Act 1997. The charges concerned removing and disposing of a bloodstained carpet and the knife used to kill a man. A third count related to disposal of the victim’s body, but the Director of Public Prosecutions did not proceed on it after accepting that the appellant had acted under duress amounting to a defence.
The murder occurred in a flat in Cabra, Dublin, on 4 January 2009. The appeal court said there was no suggestion the appellant was implicated in the killing. It described the killing as a sudden, spontaneous act by another person present. The court distinguished the body disposal, for which the appellant was not criminally responsible, from the acts covered by his guilty pleas.
At the Central Criminal Court, the appellant was sentenced on 6 February 2012 to six years’ imprisonment, with the final two years suspended. The sentencing judge initially referred to the appellant bearing responsibility for disposal of the body, but prosecution counsel corrected him. The judge said he had moderated the sentence from seven years to six after the correction.
On appeal, the court found that although the duress did not excuse the carpet and knife offences, it reduced their seriousness and had not been given sufficient weight. It also found an error in failing to account for four and a half months the appellant spent in custody on the charges. The court rejected a comparison with a later sentence in another case, saying the relevant facts would need to be known before the cases could be considered comparable.
The court said the appellant had spent about 17 and a half months in custody in total. It held that the proper sentence was four years, with two years suspended. It also cited special circumstances: the appellant had given evidence in the prosecution of the alleged perpetrator and was in the Witness Protection Programme. The court ordered that any remaining balance above the time already spent in jail be suspended, noting the serious implications of requiring him to return to prison.