The Court of Appeal quashed a suspended sentence imposed on Shane Tobin for assault causing harm at a Cork barber shop and substituted two years’ imprisonment, starting on 20 January 2020.
The court ruled on an application by the Director of Public Prosecutions to review the sentence as unduly lenient. Tobin had received three and a half years’ imprisonment, suspended for four years, at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on 27 February 2019.
The assault took place on 28 October 2017 at a barber’s shop in the Savoy Shopping Centre in Cork. The judgment said Tobin returned to the shop after paying for his 12-year-old son’s haircut and punched the barber in the head six or seven times. After the barber tried to restrain him, Tobin assaulted him again. The barber suffered a fracture to his right cheekbone. The judgment said the barber’s business later closed; he contended that the incident was at least partly responsible.
The Director argued that the sentencing judge had assessed the offence as mid-range when it should have been placed at the upper end of that range, and had not given enough weight to Tobin’s previous convictions. The Court of Appeal described the assault as serious, citing the physical injuries, the effect on the barber’s life and the fact that he was working when attacked. It also referred to Tobin’s record of violent offences, including 51 previous convictions recorded in Ireland and an English conviction for wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.
The judgment noted uncertainty over whether the English conviction was recorded in 2004 or 2014. It also recorded that €1,000 had been brought to court as compensation and that the Circuit Court judge had relied on Tobin’s mother’s dependence on him when deciding to suspend the sentence.
The appeal court found that the custody threshold had been crossed and that the letter from Tobin’s mother did not justify avoiding imprisonment. It said a three-year prison term would have been appropriate at first instance. But when resentencing, the court took account of the time that had passed since the original sentence, Tobin having stayed out of trouble and secured full-time employment. It limited its intervention to quashing the original sentence and substituting two years’ imprisonment, dated from the day of judgment.