The Court of Appeal has reduced Joseph Berry’s sentence for his role in a planned ATM theft in Enniscorthy and ruled that his prison terms must be backdated to the date he entered custody in Germany during extradition proceedings.
Berry was part of a gang that stole an ATM containing €205,100 from the Mace service station on Belfield Road on 24 July 2009. The operation involved a car stolen in Waterford the previous day, a Mitsubishi Pajero and an Ifor Williams trailer stolen in Enniscorthy, and a JCB transported to the scene. Removing the ATM also damaged the service station walls.
Berry later left Ireland before being charged. He lived and worked in Germany until his extradition in 2016. The Court of Appeal stressed that he had been legally entitled to remain there and should not have been described at sentencing as a fugitive. He did not contest surrender.
At Wexford Circuit Criminal Court, Berry pleaded guilty to three theft counts, criminal damage and unlawful taking of a vehicle. A six-year headline sentence was reduced to concurrent terms producing an effective four-year prison term.
On appeal, the court compared Berry’s position with three other gang members. Berry was the youngest and the only one without previous convictions. Two older co-accused who contested lengthy trials received net terms of five years nine months and six years, while Des Kavanagh, who also pleaded guilty, received three years nine months.
The appeal court found the disparity with the two men who contested their cases significant and unjustifiable. It also held that Berry’s guilty plea was particularly valuable because the prosecution would otherwise have relied on uncorroborated accomplice evidence.
The court re-imposed broadly similar sentences but suspended the final nine months of the concurrent four-year terms for two years after release. It also ordered all sentences backdated to 9 December 2015, when Berry was first detained in Germany.