The Court of Appeal has allowed a Director of Public Prosecutions application to review Michael Lynch’s sentence as unduly lenient, quashed the sentence imposed by the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court and substituted three years’ imprisonment without suspension. The court ordered credit for time served under the original order up to release and for any custody since a bench warrant was issued by the Court of Appeal.
The original sentence, imposed on 6 October 2017 and backdated to 27 February 2017, was three years’ imprisonment with 18 months suspended. It concerned a burglary; a false-imprisonment count on the indictment had been taken into consideration. The Court of Appeal delivered its judgment on 21 January 2019.
The judgment says the burglary occurred on 26 February 2017 at a domestic dwelling on Newbridge Avenue, Dublin 4. The basement was used as a medical surgery, while the doctor and his wife lived upstairs. At about 5pm, the wife heard a noise in her bedroom and found Lynch there. He asked where the money was, took her handbag and searched it. She ran downstairs and opened the front door, but Lynch pushed it shut, keeping her inside. He left by a side door and was pursued by the doctor. Gardaí intercepted him. A blue wallet taken from a table in the surgery was found where he had discarded an object, and foreign currency in his hand when arrested was identified as coming from the house.
The court said several aggravating features identified in earlier burglary sentencing guidance were present: the burglary was of a home, there was a confrontation with the householder, the woman’s liberty was restricted, and Lynch had a poor record that included burglary convictions. He had 121 previous convictions, including 16 for burglary, seven for theft, two for robbery and one for assault. The court also noted the probation report assessed him as at high risk of reoffending.
The Court of Appeal considered a headline, pre-mitigation sentence of about five years appropriate. It recognised the guilty plea and Lynch’s difficult personal circumstances as mitigating factors, including a recent prostate cancer diagnosis, long-standing heroin addiction and an arson attack on his family while he was in custody. It concluded, however, that the original sentence substantially departed from what was expected for an offence of this seriousness and this record. It said a three-year sentence without suspension would have been appropriate and could not be regarded as severe or harsh.
The appeal court therefore found the sentence unduly lenient. It replaced the original sentence with three years’ imprisonment without suspension, subject to the custody credits specified in its order.