The Court of Appeal has increased the sentence imposed on Sidney Sutton after finding that the original terms for assault causing harm and producing a knife were unduly lenient. The court quashed those sentences and re-sentenced him to a net custodial term of two years and four months, including credit for one year already served.
Sutton was convicted by a jury in November 2017 of four assaults, one assault causing harm and producing an article capable of causing serious injury. The charges arose from an incident on 6 February 2016 involving his then partner, at their home in Ashbourne, County Meath. The Director of Public Prosecutions brought the appeal under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993, seeking a review for undue leniency.
The judgment recounts evidence that the assault began during a taxi journey and continued after the pair reached the home. The complainant was punched and kicked, and was stabbed in the leg and shoulder with a kitchen knife. She was taken to hospital, where her knee injury was explored under general anaesthetic. The children were staying elsewhere that night. The jury rejected Sutton’s account that the complainant had assaulted him and harmed herself.
At sentencing, the Circuit Court imposed four months’ imprisonment on the four assault counts. For assault causing harm and producing the knife, it imposed two years on each count, with the final 12 months suspended. The terms were concurrent. The Court of Appeal said the sentencing judge had set a three-year headline sentence for the latter offences.
The appeal court held that the headline sentences for those offences could not reasonably have been below four years, given the stabbing, the deliberate retrieval of the knife and the prolonged domestic assault. It rejected the argument that alcohol or perceived provocation reduced Sutton’s culpability. It also found the further suspension of one year unjustified in the absence of a cogent evidential basis, while recognising that his first-offender status, employment and relationship with his children merited mitigation.
On re-sentencing, the court set a four-year headline sentence and deducted one year and eight months, leaving two years and four months to serve. It directed that Sutton receive credit for the year already served and that the sentence run from the date of the original sentence. The court issued a committal warrant but deferred its execution until noon on 16 October 2020, when Sutton was expected to surrender at Ballymun Garda Station. It directed that an arrest warrant issue if he failed to surrender, subject to notification to the court registrar.