The Court of Appeal has increased the prison sentences imposed on Stephen Comey for unlawfully taking a car, assaulting its passenger and possessing a syringe, after allowing a prosecution appeal against undue leniency.
In a judgment delivered on 31 May 2018, the court found that the original three-and-a-half-year headline sentence for unlawful seizure placed a grave offence in the low range of seriousness. It said the sentencing judge had made a manifest error of principle by failing to place that offence at least in the mid-range. The court said the resulting sentence was unduly lenient.
The offences took place in Dublin city centre on 12 May 2014. Evidence at the sentence hearing was that Comey entered a car while its owner was away getting a parking ticket. The owner’s wife, Xiaoling Zhou, who was seven and a half months pregnant, was in the passenger seat. Comey drove away while she remained inside, punched her as she tried to stop the car, threatened to kill her and attempted to push her out. Gardaí pursued the car as it was driven erratically, with its passenger door open. The judgment records that the car struck parked vehicles and that the driver went through a red light. A syringe containing a substance was found on Comey when he was arrested.
The judgment described the original sentencing judge’s consideration of the victim’s presence in the car and her pregnancy, as well as Comey’s addiction, guilty pleas and rehabilitation efforts. But it said the judge had not treated the driving, threats, previous convictions or the fact that the offences were committed while Comey was subject to a suspended sentence as aggravating factors in sentencing for unlawful seizure.
The Court of Appeal set headline sentences of seven years for unlawful seizure and three and a half years each for assault causing harm and possession of a syringe with intent to injure, threaten or intimidate. It then reduced those terms to reflect Comey’s guilty pleas, personal circumstances, addiction and attempts at rehabilitation: 18 months off the unlawful-seizure term and nine months off each of the other terms.
The court imposed net sentences of five years and six months for unlawful seizure and two years and nine months for each of the other offences. It directed that all three be backdated to 10 October 2015 and credited Comey with 31 and a half months spent on remand in these matters. The judgment does not state that the terms are to be served consecutively.