The High Court has refused Michael Collins’s application to quash the sentence and driving disqualification imposed after his conviction for handling stolen property. Mr Justice Max Barrett ruled that the five-year suspension of the final four months of Collins’s prison term was within the Circuit Court’s jurisdiction and that the two-year driving ban was lawful.
Collins was found in February 2015 with stolen power tools worth almost €7,000 and two bicycles worth just under €2,000. The items had been stolen in Dublin days earlier. A man whose property had been taken reported seeing tools at a market in Enniscorthy and identified a red van in which they were found.
In December 2015, the District Court imposed a cumulative ten-month prison sentence for three counts of handling stolen property. On appeal, Circuit Court Judge Hickson affirmed the ten-month sentence, suspended its final four months for five years, and disqualified Collins from driving for two years. The judge said Collins had used his own van to handle the stolen property. Collins’s counsel had urged the court to give him an opportunity to stay out of prison.
Collins later sought judicial review, asking the High Court to quash both the sentence and the driving disqualification. He argued that the five-year suspension exceeded the Circuit Court’s powers. The judgment records that he had not objected to the suspension period when his sentence was revised on appeal.
On the driving ban, Barrett J found that the van’s use was central to the offences and that the Circuit Court judge had properly exercised the power under section 27 of the Road Traffic Act 1961. The High Court saw no legal basis to quash the disqualification.
On the suspension, the court considered section 99 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 and earlier decisions on the statutory regime. It held that the Circuit Court was not limited to a two-year suspension and that the judge had given reasons. The five-year period was not so disproportionate as to make it unfair, unlawful or beyond jurisdiction.
The High Court noted that Collins had chosen to enter a bond and comply with the five-year period, rather than serve the remaining four months in prison. It did not need to decide whether to exercise its discretion over the requested reliefs because Collins had established no legal defect. The court refused all the reliefs sought.