The Court of Appeal has quashed sentences imposed in Waterford Circuit Criminal Court on David Foley after finding the overall term unduly lenient, and resentenced him to an aggregate six years and six months in prison.
The appeal was brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993. The original sentences, imposed on 20 May 2022, covered three offences: trespass with a weapon on 19 April 2020; aggravated burglary on 11 March 2020; and possession of drugs for sale or supply on 23 May 2020.
The court heard that the aggravated burglary involved Foley and another man entering an apartment in Waterford, where Foley repeatedly struck a man with a retractable sawblade. The victim suffered significant injuries. The court said the offence arose against the background of a feud between two groups. In a separate incident about five weeks later, Foley and three others entered the same apartment complex carrying weapons, including an axe and a wooden pole. The occupants barricaded themselves inside their apartment, and the group left without entering it.
In the drugs case, Gardaí stopped a car during the Covid-19 lockdown. Foley, a rear-seat passenger, accepted ownership of 11,700 alprazolam tablets and said he intended to sell them in Kilkenny. Their stated value was €23,400. He was on bail for the trespass offence when the drugs offence was committed.
The original sentence was two years and three months for trespass; three years for aggravated burglary, with two years and three months suspended; and four years for the drugs offence, with the final three years suspended. The drugs sentence had to run consecutively to the trespass sentence by law, while it ran concurrently with the burglary sentence. The resulting effective term was three years and three months.
The Court of Appeal said the effective nine-month term for aggravated burglary was a substantial departure from the norm. It also found the effective 12-month term for the drugs offence inadequate to reflect its seriousness. The court quashed the Circuit Court sentences and resentenced Foley to 12 months for trespass, six years and six months for aggravated burglary, and five years and six months for the drugs offence.
The trespass and burglary sentences run concurrently from the date the original Circuit Court sentences began. The drugs sentence runs consecutively to the trespass sentence, as required by statute. The court said no further adjustment was needed to account for the totality of the offending.