The Court of Appeal has dismissed Bridget Connors’s appeal against the severity of a three-year prison sentence for attempted robbery, finding the sentence was not excessive in the circumstances.
Connors pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 9 September 2014 to attempting to rob a shop on Amiens Street, Dublin, in November 2012. She was sentenced on 20 May 2015. The appeal challenged both the length of the sentence and the decision not to suspend its final part.
The court heard that Connors entered the shop at 12.30pm on 29 November 2012, when a woman was managing it alone. Connors produced a syringe and demanded that the till be opened. The woman retreated to a lower level of the premises, and Connors left. CCTV footage later identified Connors. The judgment said she had been detained by gardaí earlier that day for a drugs search.
For Connors, counsel argued that the offence did not warrant a three-year prison term and that suspending part of it could encourage future good behaviour. The Director of Public Prosecutions opposed the appeal, arguing that the sentence was just and reasonable and that the sentencing judge was justified in declining to offer a suspended portion after Connors failed to engage meaningfully with the Probation Service.
The appeal court noted that, at sentencing, Connors had 46 previous convictions, including convictions for theft, drug-related offences and assault. It also recorded her long history of heroin and cocaine abuse, her methadone programme and a below-the-knee amputation resulting in a prosthetic leg. The judgment said a psychiatric report before the sentencing court was uncertain about the reliability of a bipolar affective disorder diagnosis.
The Court of Appeal said producing a syringe during an attempted robbery was a “clear and serious aggravating factor” and that being under the influence of drugs was no excuse. It considered the sentencing judge had no realistic option but to impose imprisonment and that three years was not excessive given the offence and Connors’s personal circumstances.
The court also rejected the request to suspend the final part of the term, citing Connors’s failure to engage meaningfully with the Probation Service. It dismissed the appeal.