The Court of Appeal allowed a Director of Public Prosecutions appeal against sentences imposed on Mark Taylor, finding that the one-year terms for two endangerment offences were unduly lenient. The court replaced the original sentences and suspended the final three years of the resulting term, subject to probation supervision after release.
Taylor had pleaded guilty to charges on two bills in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. The offences on Bill 904/14 arose on 19 June 2013. The court heard that he drove a stolen Lexus into a Garda car at a service station and escaped. Both Gardaí were injured and taken to hospital. One required neck surgery and was out of work for more than a year; the other was off work for about four months. The damage to the Garda vehicle was valued at €1,588.83.
The offences on Bill 563/14 occurred ten days later. The court heard that Taylor drove a Subaru Legacy at speed through a residential area, on the wrong side of the road and past pedestrians, before colliding with another car. Its occupants were injured but did not require hospital treatment. The judgment also recorded the DPP’s account that Taylor drove towards a Garda vehicle during the incident.
The DPP argued that the overall sentences failed to reflect the seriousness of the offending and gave excessive weight to mitigation. Taylor’s counsel submitted that the sentencing judge had accounted for both aggravating and mitigating circumstances, and that the totality principle required the court to consider that Taylor was already serving a three-year sentence from Naas Circuit Court.
The Court of Appeal said the one-year terms for the endangerment offences substantially departed from appropriate sentences. It described the driving in a built-up area, with members of the public present, as egregious, and said the occupants’ lack of serious injury was fortuitous. The court set a five-year headline sentence for each endangerment offence, to run concurrently with each other.
The court left unchanged the concurrent three-year sentences on Bill 904/14, and the three-year sentence for unlawful use of a vehicle on Bill 563/14. The sentences on Bill 563/14 were to run consecutively to those on Bill 904/14. The resulting total was eight years before mitigation, with the sentences backdated to 6 June 2015, when the earlier Naas sentence ended.
Taking account of Taylor’s timely guilty pleas, rehabilitation, education in prison, conduct there and family circumstances, the Court of Appeal suspended the final three years for three years from his release. He must be supervised by the probation service and comply with its directions during that period. The original sentences were vacated and replaced by the Court of Appeal’s sentences.