The Court of Appeal has dismissed Paul Cummins’s appeal against the severity of a four-year prison sentence for robbing €350 from a Dublin Centra shop while armed with a knife.
Cummins pleaded guilty to the robbery at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 1 November 2013. He was sentenced on 17 November 2014, with the sentence backdated to 1 February 2014.
The appeal argued that the sentencing judge had failed to account for rehabilitation and that the sentence was unduly severe. The Court of Appeal judgment, delivered ex tempore by Mr Justice Sheehan on 13 October 2015, records that Cummins’s counsel said he had a drug addiction, had been raised by his maternal grandmother because of his parents’ drug addiction, and had spent more than nine of the previous 11 years in prison.
The court said the sentencing judge had postponed sentence and given Cummins two opportunities to take part in different drug treatment programmes. He was unable to take up either opportunity. The appeal court said the judge had rehabilitation at the forefront of her mind when trying to construct an appropriate sentence.
The judgment described the robbery as taking place after Cummins left his girlfriend’s home following a domestic dispute. At the shop, he produced a knife, frightened the young female attendant and forced her to open the till. He took €350 and left. He was arrested a short time later while intoxicated, and €310 was recovered.
The court noted that Cummins had 132 previous convictions, including 12 for theft, three for robbery and five for burglary, and had been released from prison in April 2012 after a lengthy sentence. It concluded that, given his previous convictions and ongoing drug addiction, the trial judge had not imposed an unduly severe or excessive sentence. The appeal was dismissed.