The Court of Appeal has rejected a prosecution attempt to increase Aaron Babington’s sentence for the attempted murder of Jason Butler following an attack on Grand Parade in Cork City.
Babington was sentenced on April 11, 2025 to 10 years in prison, with the final two years suspended for two years. The Director of Public Prosecutions argued that the sentence was unduly lenient because too much allowance had been made for mitigation and because suspending two years left the overall sentence substantially below the appropriate level.
The offence arose from an incident on June 14, 2023. The court recorded evidence that Babington, Butler and Babington’s girlfriend Mary Roche had been drinking together. Detective Sergeant Colin Greenway gave evidence that Babington became angry about the attention Roche was paying Butler.
According to the evidence summarised by the court, Babington threatened Butler, struck Roche, attempted to kick Butler and later smashed a vodka bottle before pressing the broken bottle into Butler’s neck while he was on the ground. A passer-by intervened and disarmed him.
Butler suffered cardiac arrest and died in Cork University Hospital on June 16. A post-mortem found that his death resulted from brain injury following cardiac arrest after sharp-force injuries, but it was difficult to determine how much those injuries contributed to the death. On that basis, the DPP accepted Babington’s plea to attempted murder rather than murder.
The Court of Appeal said the sentencing judge had properly recognised the seriousness of the attack, Babington’s 146 previous convictions and his high risk of reoffending. However, the judge was also entitled to give significant weight to his guilty plea, personal circumstances, remorse and prospects for rehabilitation.
The appeal court found no error in the roughly 28% reduction for mitigation and no error in suspending the final two years to encourage rehabilitation. It said a prosecution appeal requires more than showing a sentence was lenient: it must represent a substantial departure from the appropriate sentence.
The DPP had not met that threshold, and the appeal was dismissed.