The Court of Appeal has dismissed Lee Goodchild’s appeal against the severity of a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence for arson at a house in Mullingar, County Westmeath.
In a judgment delivered on 10 October 2022, Ms Justice Kennedy said the 10-year pre-mitigation sentence identified by the sentencing judge was “somewhat on the high side” but within the judge’s margin of appreciation. The court was not persuaded that the judge had erred in setting it.
Goodchild had pleaded guilty on 16 April 2021 to arson under section 2(1) and (4) of the Criminal Damage Act 1991. Mullingar Circuit Court sentenced him on 15 July 2021 to seven and a half years’ imprisonment, with the final 18 months suspended for 10 years. The appeal challenged the severity of that sentence; it did not concern his conviction.
The arson took place at about 2.15am on 26 August 2019. The judgment said petrol was used as an accelerant, with a lit rag pushed through the house’s letterbox. The resident escaped through a sitting-room window and returned several times while waiting for the fire brigade, trying to extinguish the fire with kettles of water. CCTV showed Goodchild travelling to the property, approaching it on foot and returning to a car after a flash. Separate footage showed him filling a container with petrol at a service station shortly before the fire.
The Court of Appeal described the offence as planned rather than opportunistic. It highlighted the attack on a dwelling in the early hours, when the occupant might be expected to be asleep, and the impact on the resident. A victim impact statement read at sentencing said she had developed panic disorder, agoraphobia and post-traumatic stress disorder and was undergoing cognitive behavioural therapy.
The sentencing judge had reduced the headline sentence by two and a half years, citing mitigation including an early guilty plea, voluntary attendance at a Garda station, cooperation with Gardaí and efforts towards rehabilitation. The appeal court said that amounted to a 25 per cent reduction and was appropriate.
The appeal also challenged the sentencing judge’s treatment of the failure to pay compensation as an aggravating factor. The Court of Appeal said the judge had clearly referred to it that way. It said any error on that point was not significant enough to justify intervention, noting that compensation could have reduced the resident’s financial loss. The court therefore dismissed the appeal and left the sentence in place.