The Court of Appeal quashed a five-year sentence imposed on Roy Cambridge after finding that the sentencing judge had been given inaccurate evidence about his previous convictions. It resentenced him to three and a half years for possession of heroin for sale or supply, suspending the final 12 months on conditions.
Cambridge had pleaded guilty to offences under sections 3 and 15 of the Misuse of Drugs Act 1977, as amended. Cork Circuit Criminal Court sentenced him on 6 June 2018 to five years’ imprisonment, with the final 18 months suspended for the section 15 offence. The section 3 offence was taken into consideration.
The Court of Appeal heard that Gardaí stopped a car Cambridge was driving on Cork’s northside on 22 May 2017. After text messages on his phones were found to be incriminating in relation to drug sales, he produced a bag before a further search at a nearby station. It contained two bags of heroin, with a stated street value of €970.50. He admitted possessing the drugs for sale and supply to others.
At sentencing, the court heard of 13 previous section 3 convictions for personal possession, three section 15 convictions for sale or supply, and one section 15A conviction. On appeal, it emerged that one section 15 conviction arose from the same incident as the section 15A conviction, while another was the conviction before the Circuit Court. The appeal court said there were two relevant previous convictions, rather than four, and that the sentencing judge had been misled by inaccurate evidence. It described the error as inadvertent but crucial to the appeal.
The appeal court said a headline sentence of up to seven years would not have been outside the sentencing judge’s discretion, given the circumstances and evidence of dealing. But the court held that the sentence imposed was excessive on the facts because of the error in the conviction evidence.
The appeal court set a five-and-a-half-year headline sentence for the section 15 offence, then reduced it by about one third to reflect Cambridge’s signed guilty plea. It ordered a sentence of three and a half years, with the last 12 months suspended for 12 months on a bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour. The court said the substituted sentence ran from 6 June 2018, the date he entered prison, and clarified that the bond applied during custody and for 12 months after release. The section 3 offence remained taken into consideration.