The Court of Appeal has reduced Kris Collins’s eight-year prison sentence for a serious assault in Cork to five years, with the final 12 months suspended on condition that he enter a bond to keep the peace for two years after release.
In a judgment delivered on 12 February 2016, the court allowed Collins’s appeal against the severity of his sentence and resentenced him. The original eight-year term had been imposed at Cork Circuit Court on 17 June 2015 for a section 4 assault on Oliver Plunkett Street on 7 September 2014.
The court described the attack as unprovoked and without warning. CCTV showed Collins head-butting Sherzad Ismail, who fell and struck his head on the ground. Ismail later lost consciousness at home. At Cork University Hospital, a scan found a clot compressing his brain. He underwent emergency surgery and spent several days ventilated in intensive care. He was discharged on 22 September with partial weakness in his left arm.
At the sentencing hearing, Ismail’s wife described lasting changes to his mood, energy and ability to work. She said he had been unable to take up a job as a Turkish barber and that the family had faced significant financial hardship.
The Court of Appeal said the assault was clearly serious and could not be placed in the low range of offending. But it considered that the sentencing judge had placed it too high on the scale by describing it as upper mid-range and exceptional. The appeal court classified it as a mid-range offence.
The court also considered the appellant’s cooperation, plea, apology, offer of €4,000 as recompense and the fact that this would be his first time in prison. It accepted that his apology meant he had not intended the severe, long-term consequences, while noting his earlier assault conviction had involved head-butting a doorman.
The appeal court noted the sentencing judge’s remarks about possible remission, which appeared to indicate that the judge had considered the time Collins would actually serve. It also said it was unclear what role, if any, the judge’s concern about possible racial motivation played in selecting the sentence. The court did not make a finding that the assault was racially motivated.
Setting aside the original term, the Court of Appeal imposed five years’ imprisonment and suspended the final year. The suspension is conditional on Collins entering a bond to keep the peace for two years following his release.