The Court of Appeal has replaced a four-and-a-half-year sentence imposed on Derek Lennon with concurrent terms of four years, six years and three-and-a-half years for assault causing harm and two witness intimidation offences. The terms were backdated to 15 November 2018, when he first went into custody.
The court allowed a Director of Public Prosecutions appeal against undue leniency. It found that the sentence imposed by the Circuit Court was a substantial departure from the appropriate sentence. The judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Donnelly on 8 February 2021, said the total sentence identified by the appeal court was six years.
The offences concerned a witness in a road traffic case involving Lennon. The court said the witness was intimidated at his home on two occasions. After the first incident, on 2 October 2018, the witness did not attend a Circuit Court hearing the following day because, he said, he was afraid. The appeal court described that incident as borderline between the low and mid ranges of seriousness and set a five-year headline sentence before mitigation, resulting in a 3.5-year term.
The second incident occurred on 13 November 2018. The court said Lennon went to the witness’s home with a wooden plank, damaged CCTV cameras and assaulted the witness, causing permanent facial scarring and significant psychological trauma. The court assessed the appropriate headline sentence for this intimidation offence at eight years, then applied a 25% reduction for the guilty plea to reach six years. It set a five-year headline sentence for the assault and reduced it by 20% to four years.
The Circuit Court had imposed the four-and-a-half-year term on the assault count and taken the other counts into consideration. The appeal court criticised the sentencing approach, saying the judge had not clearly identified the most serious offence or explained how mitigation was applied. It held that the case centred on witness intimidation, with the assault and threats forming part of it.
The appeal court ordered concurrent sentences on Counts 2, 4 and 6: four years, six years and three years and six months respectively. All were backdated to 15 November 2018. The judgment said the criminal damage and possession-of-an-article offences were reflected in the sentence for the second intimidation offence.