The Court of Appeal quashed Martin Stokes’s 21-month sentence for theft and resentenced him, suspending seven months for one year subject to conditions.
The court found there was good reason to distinguish Stokes from his three co-accused, whose sentences had been suspended in full because of their good records. But it said the difference between their sentences and the sentence Stokes had to serve in full appeared disproportionate.
Stokes and the other men had pleaded guilty to theft arising from an incident at a construction site at Phoenix Park, Racecourse Apartments, on the Navan Road, Dublin 7, on 7 October 2016. A charge of possessing articles was taken into consideration. The judgment says tools were taken from site containers and recovered by gardaí after the vehicle was stopped.
All four men received 21-month sentences in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in January 2018. The other three had their sentences wholly suspended. Stokes appealed, arguing that the sentencing judge had not adequately accounted for mitigation and had unjustifiably treated him differently from his co-accused. The prosecution argued the distinction was justified by Stokes’s previous convictions.
The Court of Appeal said the sentencing judge may have included an allowance for Stokes’s guilty plea in the 21-month headline sentence. It also noted that the judge had cited Stokes’s record as the reason for suspending none of his sentence. Stokes had 15 previous convictions, including a 2013 Circuit Court conviction for violent disorder, for which he received a two-and-a-half-year sentence suspended in full.
The appeal court agreed that a 21-month sentence was merited after allowing for mitigation. It considered a medical report, a Jobpath report and a job offer from Serve Electric, which it said showed some prospect of Stokes turning his life around. It ordered seven months of the 21-month sentence suspended for one year, on condition he behave well during the rest of his prison term and for one year afterwards. He was also required to enter a €100 bond.