The Court of Appeal reduced Gary O’Connell’s sentence for endangerment from six years, with the final 18 months suspended, to five and a half years, suspending the final two years. The court said the revised sentence reflected the overall offending covered by the endangerment count and other offences taken into consideration. If he complies with the suspension conditions, the net custodial term is three and a half years.
The appeal concerned the severity of the sentence for an incident on 14 December 2018. The court heard that O’Connell drove at high speed while fleeing gardaí, passing red lights and weaving through traffic. At one point, his car skidded to a stop inches from a stationary patrol car, placing Garda Andrew O’Donnell in specific danger. No collision or injury occurred.
O’Connell had pleaded guilty to endangerment and several summary offences, including driving without insurance, refusing to provide a specimen, dangerous driving and obstruction. Further offences, including a series of dangerous-driving counts and obstruction, were taken into consideration at sentencing. The Court of Appeal said those offences involved significant additional culpability and justified a substantial increase to the sentence for the endangerment offence considered alone.
The sentencing judge had selected seven years as the headline sentence before imposing six years, with the final 18 months suspended. On appeal, the court held that choosing the seven-year maximum as the starting point was an error. It said comparator cases indicated that a headline sentence of four to five years would have been appropriate for the endangerment offence in isolation.
Taking account of the additional offences and aggravating factors, including O’Connell’s previous convictions and the fact that he was disqualified from driving, the appeal court set a headline sentence of five and a half years. It found no error in the sentencing judge’s assessment of the mitigation, but resentenced O’Connell after identifying the error in the starting point.
The final two years were suspended on conditions matching those imposed below, including probation supervision and rehabilitation requirements. The appeal court said the new sentence would run from the same commencement date as the original sentence. The appeal was therefore allowed to the extent that the original sentence was quashed and replaced.