The Court of Appeal has dismissed a sentence review brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions over a woman’s convictions for gross-negligence manslaughter and child cruelty following the death of her baby.
The court said the sentencing judge acted within his discretion in imposing headline sentences of four years on each count. It found no error in the mitigation discount or in the decision to suspend the final three years of each sentence. The respondent had already served the resulting three-month custodial term by the time the appeal court considered the review.
The respondent was convicted on 15 October 2021 of manslaughter on the basis of gross negligence and child cruelty contrary to section 246 of the Children Act 2001. The sentencing judge imposed three years and three months’ imprisonment on each count, suspending the final three years for three years after release, subject to conditions.
The court’s judgment said the respondent became pregnant at 18 and gave birth at 19. On 22 April 2018, she attended a Care Doc facility with her mother, complaining in part of back pain. While in a bathroom, she gave birth. The judgment records her account that the baby fell into the toilet bowl; she retrieved the baby, held the child for a time, and placed the baby and bloodstained tissue in a bin liner. She later attended hospital, where staff discovered she had recently given birth. An investigation followed.
The DPP argued that the four-year headline sentences were too low, the trial judge had misinterpreted the basis of the jury’s verdict, and the mitigation discount was excessive. The DPP also submitted that general deterrence had not been properly considered. The respondent argued, among other things, that gross-negligence cases in their often unusual and tragic circumstances were more likely to fall within the lower culpability range under the Supreme Court’s guidance in *The People (DPP) v Mahon*.
The appeal court acknowledged that the argument about interpreting the jury’s verdict “is not without substance”. But it concluded that the four-year headline sentence, at the lower end of the medium range described in *Mahon*, was within the sentencing judge’s discretion. It also said a higher headline sentence was unlikely to deter conduct as unusual as the case before it.
The court found that the sentencing judge had carefully considered the respondent’s youth, lack of previous convictions, psychiatric and probation reports, work history, engagement with psychiatric services, cooperation with Gardaí, apology and other circumstances. It said the judge had been entitled to conclude that some custody was necessary, even though the appeal court said it might have imposed a wholly suspended sentence if sentencing at first instance. The review was dismissed; the sentences imposed at trial remained in place.