The Court of Appeal quashed the sentences imposed on Robert Devine and Lee Kelly for a burglary and two assaults at a family home, after the Director of Public Prosecutions accepted that the original sentences had wrongly been imposed consecutively. The court resentenced both men, leaving the four-year terms for each assault concurrent with the other counts.
Devine and Kelly had pleaded guilty to burglary and two counts of assault causing harm over an attack in the early hours of 17 December 2017. The judgment said they entered the home of PJ O’Reilly and his son Brian while the family was there. The court heard that Brian owed Devine €50. During the attack, Kelly struck a bathroom door with a golf club and pushed a knife through a damaged panel, stabbing Brian’s hand. PJ O’Reilly was hit with a hammer and stabbed in the leg. He suffered lasting mobility and balance problems, sleeplessness and headaches. Brian required stitches for hand injuries.
The sentencing judge had imposed aggregate terms of 20 years on Devine, with the final eight years suspended, and 17 years on Kelly, with the final 10 years suspended. On appeal, the court found the offending to be in the upper range, citing its premeditated nature, the weapons used and the serious harm to the victims. It also noted that the family no longer felt secure in their home.
The court set a pre-mitigation sentence of 12 years for Devine and 10 years for Kelly. It said Kelly’s culpability was reduced because he had been influenced by his father and had intervened to pull him away from PJ O’Reilly. The court also considered the guilty pleas, remorse and personal circumstances, while noting the effect of the men’s previous convictions on mitigation.
Devine’s final sentence was 12 years, with the last two years suspended for two years. Conditions include a €200 bond, probation supervision and staying away from the victims in perpetuity. Kelly’s headline term was reduced to seven and a half years, with the final year suspended for two years on the same bond and supervision conditions, and a condition to stay away from the victims in perpetuity. Both men’s four-year sentences on each assault count remain, but run concurrently; the court said the balance of the counts was to be taken into consideration. The sentences were backdated as in the lower court. The judgment does not state the resulting aggregate custodial terms in a separate figure.