The Court of Appeal has refused Leanna Hughes’s appeal against the severity of a three-year prison sentence for robbery, finding that the sentence was within the available range.
The sentence was imposed by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 14 March 2018. The Court of Appeal delivered its judgment on 26 February 2019 and refused the appeal. It did not alter the sentence.
The robbery took place on 29 March 2017. The judgment says Hughes spoke to a man walking along South Richmond Street and asked him for bus fare. After he said he had no change, she led him along the canal, saying a nearby shop could provide change. Her co-accused, Mr O’Connor, then attacked the man with a knife, striking him in the face with its handle. Hughes took the man’s phone while the attack was underway and ran off. O’Connor took a wallet containing about €250. The man fell and hit his head, and O’Connor struck him again after Hughes had left. The two accused were identified from CCTV footage from a nearby public house and hostel.
Hughes argued that her role was less serious than O’Connor’s and that the distinction between their sentences was inadequate. Her counsel stressed that the further violence occurred after she had moved away, and submitted that the offence involved spontaneity rather than planning. The Court of Appeal accepted that the further violence followed her departure but agreed with the sentencing judge that there was “a degree of planning”. It said the focus should be on Hughes’s own sentence and described the robbery as a joint enterprise.
The judgment records that Hughes had 67 previous convictions, including 48 for theft and burglary offences, but none for robbery. The sentencing judge treated the offence, its impact on the victim, planning and her record as aggravating factors, and her guilty plea and remorse as mitigating factors.
The judgment also notes that Hughes later received a three-year sentence for burglary, with the final 18 months suspended, to run consecutively to the robbery sentence. The appeal court said the judge dealing with that later sentence had considered proportionality and totality. It did not change the outcome of the robbery appeal.