The Court of Appeal has suspended the final two years and six months of a four-year prison sentence imposed on a woman who helped three men escape after an armed robbery at Clogherhead Post Office.
In a judgment delivered on 15 December 2017, the court found a limited error of principle in the original sentencing decision: the Circuit Court judge should have given greater consideration to the effect of custody on the appellant’s relationship with her young daughter. The appeal court otherwise upheld the need for a significant custodial sentence.
The appellant, Sarah Doyle, had pleaded guilty to one count of burglary and was sentenced at Dundalk Circuit Criminal Court on 12 May 2017. The original sentence was four years, with the final two years suspended for two years after her release. The appeal court reimposed the four-year term, suspended the final 30 months on similar conditions, and directed that the sentence run from 12 May 2017.
The judgment said three men entered the post office on 3 May 2016, during a day when it held substantial cash for children’s allowance payments. One carried a sledgehammer and broke through a door; another used what staff understood to be a firearm to demand cash. A third carried an iron bar and a taser disguised as a mobile phone. Three staff members were confronted and €7,074 was handed over.
The men left in a car later found burned out in a field. Doyle’s role, the court said, was to collect them after they had abandoned and destroyed that car, then drive them to safety. She did not enter the premises or handle weapons, but the court said her getaway role was important and only marginally less culpable than the men’s. It also found she knew in advance that a taser would be used. The three staff members were seriously traumatised, with significant longer-term effects.
The appeal court accepted that the offence required a substantial custodial sentence and could not be met with a token term. It noted Doyle had no previous convictions, admitted her involvement, pleaded guilty, and had family responsibilities as a mother and as the carer of her seriously ill mother. She had also entered drug treatment and was drug free by the original sentencing. The judgment referred to reports about her daughter’s welfare, her mother’s deteriorating health, and a positive report from the prison governor.
The court concluded that the sentencing judge had addressed her caring role but should have considered more fully whether a sentence allowing the mother-child relationship to resume sooner could meet the sentencing objectives. Its intervention was limited to that issue; the custodial term remained four years.