The Court of Appeal has quashed a six-year sentence imposed for four criminal damage offences and resentenced the appellant to five years’ imprisonment, with the final two years suspended to encourage rehabilitation.
The ex tempore judgment, delivered on 24 July 2023, concerned an appeal against the severity of sentence. The appellant had pleaded guilty to four counts under section 2(1) of the Criminal Damage Act 1991, across four bill numbers. The original sentences were three years on each count, concurrent within two groups of offences but consecutive between the groups. The final two and a half years of the aggregate sentence were suspended.
The offences involved damage to vehicles belonging to two injured parties. In one incident, four tyres were punctured and wing mirrors damaged at a residence in Kildare Town; later damage to the same person’s wing mirrors was valued at €105. The other incidents involved smashed car windows at a home outside Naas. The judgment records insurance payments of €244.03 for one incident and damage valued at €4,341.53 and €809 in another. The court described the impact on all parties as severe.
The appellant argued that the original sentence was excessive and that the judge had failed to give adequate weight to mitigation and totality. The Director of Public Prosecutions opposed the appeal, submitting that the offences were linked, deliberate and part of a continuing pattern.
The appeal court rejected challenges to the sentencing judge’s overall assessment of the offences and mitigation. It agreed, however, that the absence of restitution should not have been treated as an aggravating factor, while describing that error as having no substantial effect. The court found that the judge had not adequately stepped back to assess whether the combined sentence was proportionate. It therefore quashed the original sentences and resentenced the appellant.
The court imposed a five-year headline sentence, reduced the sentences for the offences involving the first injured party to two years each, and ordered those terms to run consecutively to the concurrent sentences for the other two offences. It suspended the final two years of the resulting five-year sentence to incentivise rehabilitation.