The High Court has quashed a Circuit Court decision affirming an eight-month prison sentence for a woman convicted of stealing groceries worth €223.90 from a Lidl store in Sallins, Co Kildare. Ms Justice Hyland found that the Circuit Court judge applied a fixed sentencing policy to repeat petty-theft offenders rather than deciding whether imprisonment was appropriate in the applicant’s individual circumstances.
The judgment, delivered on 12 June 2023, arose from a judicial review of the Naas Circuit Court decision of 30 November 2021. The applicant had pleaded guilty on appeal to the theft charge. The Circuit Court affirmed the District Court’s eight-month sentence and stayed the warrant for three months because the applicant’s baby was one month old. A stay was subsequently granted pending the judicial review, and the applicant had not served the sentence by the time of the High Court hearing.
The court heard that the applicant had concealed unpaid goods in a pram on 30 April 2021. The items were recovered in saleable condition. Submissions in mitigation included that she had children, was pregnant at the time of the offence, had limited household funds and that two children had hearing defects. The judgment records that she had three previous convictions for theft and handling stolen property.
Justice Hyland focused on the Circuit Court judge’s statement that people who continued to commit petty theft would face jail, except those on the breadline or in very difficult circumstances, and that the applicant was “in one of those circumstances”. The judge found that the decision to imprison her had been made because she belonged to that category, without assessing individually whether her circumstances brought her within the stated exception. Previous offending could be an aggravating factor, the High Court said, but had to be considered on an individual basis rather than through a blanket approach.
The High Court also described the judge’s reference to offenders as “parasites” as inappropriate and injudicious. It did not, however, quash the sentence on that basis or find that the remarks themselves rendered it unlawful.
The applicant’s separate argument that the eight-month term was excessively long was rejected. Although the District Court maximum for the minor offence was 12 months, the High Court said the sentence was not shown to fall so far outside reasonable discretionary limits that it amounted to an error of law. The court also did not decide the challenge concerning the sentencing process and headline sentence, noting that it had already quashed the decision on the fixed-policy ground.
Justice Hyland granted leave and quashed the Circuit Court decision affirming the sentence. The court did not determine costs or remittal at that hearing; it listed those matters for a remote hearing on 16 June at 10.45.