The Court of Criminal Appeal has dismissed an appeal against the severity of a six-year prison sentence imposed on a man convicted of abducting his two-year-old nephew and taking him from Ireland to Egypt.
The court had announced on 25 January 2012 that it was dismissing the appeal. In a judgment delivered on 8 February, it explained why the sentence imposed by the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court was proportionate. The man had been convicted by a jury in July 2011 of child abduction under section 17 of the Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997.
The judgment said the child’s mother had custody following the breakdown of her relationship with the child’s father. The child lived with her family in Blanchardstown, apart from overnight stays with his father. After one such visit in July 2009, the mother went to collect her son and learned he was gone. Evidence at trial included airport security footage showing the applicant travelling with the child, and testimony that the child was distressed. The prosecution said the child had been dressed in pink and presented as the applicant’s four-year-old niece using her passport.
The court said the child was taken to Egypt and remained with members of the father’s family there. It described the removal as intentional and unlawful, and said the child’s age, the deception and the intended permanent separation from his mother were grave aggravating factors. The judgment noted that the Hague Convention on international child abduction did not apply to Egypt.
At sentencing, the trial judge had taken account of the applicant’s relatively good character and the greater hardship imprisonment could impose on a non-national. The appeal court was not persuaded that he had shown genuine contrition or made a sustained effort to secure the child’s return. It rejected the claim that the absence of physical ill-treatment was a mitigating factor.
The court concluded that the six-year term was proportionate to the offence and its impact. It also directed the Registrar to send a certified copy of the judgment to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, expecting it to be passed to Egyptian authorities through diplomatic channels. The court said the judgment set out the circumstances of the abduction and expressed concern that efforts to return the child had so far failed. It added that, if the child were returned, the Government could consider a later clemency petition under the Criminal Justice Act 1951. The court did not order the child’s return.