The Court of Appeal has dismissed Oisin Cannon’s appeal against the severity of an effective three-year-and-nine-month prison sentence for three counts of possessing child pornography. It found no error in principle by the sentencing judge, who was entitled to decline to suspend any part of the sentence.
Cannon had pleaded guilty before the Circuit Criminal Court sentenced him on 15 May 2024. The terms were 2.5 years for one count, a consecutive 15 months for an offence committed while on bail, and a concurrent two years on the third count. The Court of Appeal heard his appeal and delivered judgment on 6 February 2025.
The appeal challenged the sentence as disproportionate and unduly harsh, and argued that the sentencing judge had failed to give adequate weight to mitigating factors, account for delay, or consider partial suspension. At the appeal hearing, the argument about partial suspension received particular emphasis. The prosecution submitted that the sentence should stand.
The appeal court said it would have been preferable for the sentencing judge to state a headline sentence, but that he was not required to do so and had not erred in principle. It also rejected the cited comparator cases, finding their circumstances materially different. On delay, it said Cannon’s conduct and the course of his cases differed from the circumstances in which delay had weighed heavily in another case. It noted that he had given evasive accounts to gardaí and taken trial dates before pleading guilty.
The court considered the psychological report and the appellant’s submissions about factors pointing to a low risk of reoffending. It said the report was nuanced and relied in important respects on accounts from Cannon that were “profoundly misleading”. The court also noted repeated offending, that the third offence occurred while he was on bail, and that he had not started or undertaken to start a specific course of treatment. Although there had been no reoffending for about 45 months before sentencing, the court said those circumstances did not require partial suspension.
The court also rejected the arguments concerning collateral consequences, guilty pleas, previous convictions and proportionality. It dismissed the appeal, leaving the sentence in place.