The Court of Appeal has dismissed Patrick McMorrow’s appeal against the severity of his sentence for a knife attack that seriously injured two people outside a Sligo pub.
McMorrow was sentenced at Sligo Circuit Criminal Court on 25 June 2018 to 10 years in prison, with the final two years suspended for five years. The Court of Appeal said the sentence was significant and could be described as severe, but fell within the available range. It therefore dismissed the appeal.
The attack followed an argument at a post-funeral gathering at the Crozon Inn on 23 October 2016. The judgment says McMorrow followed Patrice McMorrow, also known as Patrice Harte, and her partner Michael Harte as they left, then stabbed them. CCTV footage viewed by the appeal court showed him taking a knife from inside his jacket and attacking both.
Patrice Harte suffered a stab wound to the left side of her chest, a punctured lung and a hand injury. Michael Harte was stabbed several times, suffered a punctured lung and liver laceration, and required a blood transfusion, a chest drain and intensive care. The judgment says both victims’ injuries involved a substantial risk of death.
The sentencing judge set a headline sentence of 12 years, reduced it by two years for mitigation, then suspended the final two years to encourage rehabilitation. McMorrow’s appeal challenged the judge’s emphasis on general deterrence and remarks about knife crime. The Court of Appeal found nothing untoward in those remarks and said the offence was at the high end of seriousness. It said a case could be made that the attack, involving two victims with life-threatening injuries, fell into an exceptional category under the sentencing range discussed in the judgment.
The appeal court also said two factors treated as aggravating at sentencing appeared to have been wrongly classified: McMorrow’s failure to answer questions at Garda interview and the Probation Service’s assessment that he posed a medium risk of reoffending. The judgment said the former could at most mean mitigation was unavailable. It nevertheless concluded that no error requiring intervention had been shown and that the sentence was proportionate within the available range.