The Court of Appeal quashed an order requiring David Ahearne to serve the full three-year suspended portion of an earlier sentence, then reconsidered the matter and ordered him to serve two years of that term. The final 12 months remain suspended on the original terms.
The court found that Ahearne breached two conditions attached to the suspended sentence: engaging and co-operating with the Probation and Welfare Service, and keeping the peace and being of good behaviour. It concluded that the suspension had to be revoked and that it would not be unjust to do so.
The original sentence was imposed at Clonmel Circuit Criminal Court in 2008. It comprised a total of six years for assaults committed in 2006 and 2007, with the final three years suspended for five years after release, subject to conditions including probation engagement. Ahearne was released in November 2011 and stopped contacting his probation officer in April 2012.
At a July 2014 hearing, the Circuit Court was told that Ahearne had left home because his family had been threatened, but that he had not told probation or his family where he was going. He had lived elsewhere in Ireland, then in the Netherlands and England. The Circuit Court activated the full suspended term and directed that it follow a separate sentence he was serving for a 2012 assault in Waterford.
The Court of Appeal said the Circuit Court had insufficient information about the Waterford case to assess whether that direction was proportionate and consistent with the totality principle. It therefore quashed the July 2014 order and reconsidered the decision itself.
The appeal court found that Ahearne had seriously reoffended during the suspension, including the Waterford assault and later offences in England. It rejected the claim that threats to his family were the sole reason he left Ireland, finding that he had primarily absconded to avoid arrest and trial for the Waterford offence. The court also considered material about his engagement with addiction counselling and completion of therapeutic courses in prison.
Taking account of procedural irregularities in the case, the court reduced the time to be served from three years to two. It directed that the two-year balance begin after the sentence for the Waterford matter. The judgment was delivered on 14 December 2015.