The Court of Appeal has refused a Director of Public Prosecutions application to review as unduly lenient the suspended sentences imposed on Jarlath Higgins for criminal damage and dangerous driving during a prolonged incident near Dundalk in 2015.
Higgins pleaded guilty in Dundalk Circuit Court on 4 May 2017 to one count of criminal damage and two counts of dangerous driving. Three other counts were taken into consideration. In October 2017, the sentencing judge imposed a two-year prison sentence for criminal damage and five months on each dangerous-driving count, all suspended and concurrent. Driving disqualifications of three years and two years were also imposed, concurrently. The judge required restitution of €7,500 for damage to Garda cars if insurance did not cover it.
The Court of Appeal heard that Higgins drove through a Garda checkpoint in the early hours of 18 November 2015 and was pursued. Evidence at the sentencing hearing described collisions with two patrol cars during the pursuit. Garda Brady was injured and later underwent neck surgery; the court noted that the sentencing court had not been given notice of evidence about ongoing injuries, and there was no medical report before it. Damage to the two patrol cars was put at a total of €7,500.
The DPP argued that the offending warranted an immediate custodial term, citing the danger to Gardaí and other road users, the damage, deterrence and the sentencing judge’s decision to suspend the sentences in full. The respondent relied on his guilty pleas, lack of previous convictions, personal circumstances and low assessed risk of reoffending. The DPP also argued that the second dangerous-driving count should attract a longer disqualification as a subsequent offence.
The appeal court said it could intervene only if the sentence represented a clear departure from the norm, generally caused by an obvious error of principle. It found the two-year headline sentence for criminal damage was at the very lenient end of the sentencing judge’s discretion but remained within it. The five-month terms for dangerous driving were also within the judge’s discretion and toward the high end of the available range. The court accepted that the dangerous driving formed part of one prolonged event, so the two convictions did not trigger treatment as first and subsequent offences for disqualification purposes.
The court described the ultimate sentences as very lenient, but held that the judge was entitled to suspend them in light of the substantial mitigation, including Higgins’s previous good character. It declined to address the complaints about compensation and an additional disqualification order, explaining that its power under section 2 was limited to quashing an unduly lenient sentence and resentencing. The DPP’s application was refused.