The Court of Appeal has dismissed Jonathan O’Neill’s appeal against concurrent six-year sentences for robbery and aggravated burglary, finding that the sentencing judge adequately accounted for relevant mitigating factors, including rehabilitation.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Mahon on 22 February 2016, concerned offences to which O’Neill pleaded guilty at Trim Circuit Criminal Court on 4 February 2014. He was sentenced on 13 November 2014. Both offences carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, the appeal court said.
The robbery took place at Clonalvy Post Office in County Meath on 21 November 2012. The judgment said O’Neill and a co-accused entered wearing balaclavas and carrying knives. They manhandled a post office employee and an elderly woman, threatened the employee and demanded cash from the safe, referring to a cash delivery made earlier that morning. They dropped the money when confronted outside and fled on foot after their car failed to start.
The aggravated burglary involved a nearby house. The men smashed the glass in the front door, entered with knives and demanded the keys from the occupant, a Polish man in his eighties. He handed them over. The stolen car was crashed a short distance away, and the men continued their escape on foot.
The court heard through Garda witnesses that the post office employee was deeply traumatised, had not returned to her job after 15 years there and felt she might never recover from the experience. The householder was also reported to have been traumatised and terrified; he had since returned to Poland.
O’Neill argued that the sentencing judge had given insufficient weight to his rehabilitation efforts and prospects, his limited previous record, and his claim that he played the lesser role and had acted after threats over a drugs debt. The appeal judgment records that the sentencing judge considered his guilty plea, cooperation, remorse shown in a letter of apology and positive steps to address drug addiction. O’Neill had one prior conviction, for unlawful possession of drugs in 2010, for which he was fined €150; he also had a history of drug addiction and mental health issues.
The appeal court said the sentencing judge’s failure to identify a specific starting sentence before allowing for mitigation did not, by itself, amount to an error of principle. It considered that a sentence before mitigation could reasonably have been eight or nine years, making six years after discounting not unreasonable. It also rejected the argument based on the co-accused’s sentence: the co-accused had a worse previous record, but the court said that did not require a lower sentence for O’Neill and that the co-accused’s sentence may instead have been lenient.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the sentence appeal. The six-year concurrent terms therefore remained in place.