The Court of Appeal has reduced a man’s cumulative prison sentence from 17 years to 13 years after finding that the headline sentence set for offences committed while he was on bail was substantially disproportionate.
The appeal concerned sentences imposed by Cork Circuit Criminal Court on Garrett Hill for drug offences under two criminal bills. On the first bill, Hill had pleaded guilty during his trial to two charges of possessing drugs for sale or supply. The sentencing judge imposed seven years on one count and took the other into consideration. The Court of Appeal upheld that sentence, finding the 20% discount for the late guilty pleas appropriate. It also rejected a parity challenge, saying Hill had been in overall control of the operation and was not comparable to his co-accused.
The second bill concerned offences after gardaí searched Hill’s home in January 2017 while he was on bail for the earlier offences. The sentencing judge treated the possession charges as subsumed into the sale-or-supply charges and imposed an 11-year net sentence on a diamorphine count, taking the cocaine and cannabis counts into consideration. The sentence was consecutive to the sentence on the first bill. After applying the totality principle, the original cumulative sentence was 17 years.
The Court of Appeal found a clear error of principle in the 15-year headline sentence for the second bill. It assessed the appropriate headline sentence at nine years: about seven years for the intrinsic gravity of the offence, increased by 30% to account for aggravating circumstances, including offending on bail and relevant previous convictions. The court then allowed a discount of about one third for mitigation, producing a six-year net sentence before aggregation.
Adding that six years to the eight-year net sentence on the first bill would have produced 14 years. Applying the totality principle, the Court of Appeal reduced the overall term to 13 years, making the net sentence on the second bill five years. It agreed there was insufficient evidential basis to suspend any part of the cumulative sentence. The appeal was allowed.