The Court of Appeal resentenced Warren Bowen on 30 July 2015 after the Director of Public Prosecutions appealed the leniency of his sentence. It imposed an indicative two-year sentence and suspended it for two years on a €100 own bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour.
The court had ruled on 1 May 2015 that the Circuit Court was wrong to suspend the full four-year sentence it had reached after allowing for mitigation. It said the sentencing judge could have partly suspended that sentence to support Bowen’s rehabilitation, but the circumstances then did not justify suspending it entirely.
The appeal court revisited the sentence using information available at the resentencing hearing. It noted that the Circuit Court had set a seven-year headline sentence, reduced by three years for mitigating circumstances. The appeal court considered a five-year reduction from the headline sentence justified, leaving an indicative sentence of two years.
The court then considered whether developments since February 2014 justified suspending that remaining term. It heard that Bowen had moved to England after the Circuit Court sentence, later made himself available to Gardaí for execution of a bench warrant, and had not come to adverse notice. The court also received positive testimonials from customers who had employed him as a carpenter, cabinet maker and theatrical set fabricator. It noted that he had re-established a relationship with his daughter.
The court said the further period of good behaviour, employment testimonials, earlier positive probation reports, the stress of facing sentence after a successful prosecution appeal, and the risk of undermining the renewed relationship with his daughter cumulatively amounted to special reasons and exceptional circumstances. It therefore ordered the two-year indicative sentence wholly suspended, subject to the bond conditions for two years from 30 July 2015.