The Court of Appeal has reduced Christopher Kelly’s sentence for possessing a firearm in suspicious circumstances after finding little basis to treat him more severely than his co-accused, Kealan Madden.
The court quashed the six-year sentence imposed by Kilkenny Circuit Court, which had suspended its final 12 months, and substituted a five-year sentence with the final 12 months suspended. The substituted sentence takes effect from the same date as the Circuit Court sentence. The appeal concerned sentence severity; the Court of Appeal did not alter the conviction in the order described in the judgment.
The case arose from a vehicle stop in rural Kilkenny on 20 May 2020. Gardaí saw a small black object thrown from the rear window and later found a modified 9mm pistol in hedging. They also found 47 rounds of ammunition in a sock between Madden’s legs. Kelly was driving; Madden was a rear-seat passenger. Both had entered early guilty pleas.
At sentencing, Kelly’s counsel said he believed the package he was paid to transport contained drugs, not a firearm. The sentencing judge treated his role as aggravating, along with driving the vehicle and wearing disposable gloves. She identified his early plea, remorse and personal circumstances as mitigation, and said exceptional and specific circumstances allowed departure from the statutory presumptive minimum. She set a seven-year headline sentence and imposed six years, with one year suspended.
The Court of Appeal said the five years Kelly would actually serve was not, by itself, disproportionate. But it found little basis for distinguishing him from Madden, whose five-year sentence also had its final year suspended. The firearm had been thrown from Madden’s seat, and the ammunition was between his legs; the court considered the case against him probably stronger. It also said Kelly’s plea was no less valuable and arguably of marginally greater value, and his personal circumstances appeared more difficult in some respects.
The appeal court concluded that the difference in treatment could give Kelly a sense of grievance, heightened by the sentencing judge’s finding that there was a basis to depart from the statutory minimum but her decision to impose an effective five years. It intervened and resentenced him, also considering updated information about his conduct in custody and letters from Kelly and his father.