The Court of Appeal has suspended the final year of Darren Coss’s two-and-a-half-year sentence for being carried in a stolen Toyota Hilux during a prolonged Garda pursuit through Moneygall.
Coss pleaded guilty in January 2015 to being carried in a motor vehicle without the owner’s consent. The offence arose from events at about 5am on August 28, 2013, when Gardaí spotted the stolen jeep driving through Moneygall.
Patrol cars pursued it for about 45 minutes. The Hilux eventually entered a laneway leading to a house and yard at Killough, where it reversed into a Garda patrol car. Coss and his co-accused, David Condon, then ran from the vehicle and were arrested.
Coss’s first trial had ended in October 2014 when the jury could not reach a verdict. During a retrial the following January, he pleaded guilty to the vehicle offence and the remaining charges were not pursued.
He later failed to attend a scheduled sentencing hearing while on bail. A bench warrant was issued and executed on July 2, 2015. He was ultimately sentenced to two years and six months, consecutive to an eight-month District Court sentence.
On appeal, Coss argued among other points that he had been unfairly treated as responsible for dangerous driving even though he was a passenger, and that his sentence was disproportionate compared with Condon’s. Condon had received the same headline term but with the final year suspended.
The Court of Appeal rejected the suggestion that Coss was treated as the driver. However, it said he was not an innocent passenger and bore some responsibility for participating in an attempt to evade Gardaí.
The judges found the two-and-a-half-year headline term reasonable. They also upheld the decision to make it consecutive to the District Court sentence.
But the court found an error in failing to suspend part of Coss’s term when the two men’s circumstances were broadly similar. It resentenced him to two years and six months with the final 12 months suspended for two years, subject to a €100 good-behaviour bond.