The Court of Appeal has reduced a man’s sentence for breaking a neighbour’s window during an attack on his family home in Drogheda, finding that the offence had been placed too high on the gravity scale.
Hugh Myers pleaded guilty to one count of criminal damage after breaking a window at 242 Rathmullen Park on 27 September 2011. He was sentenced by the Circuit Criminal Court sitting in Dundalk to two years in prison, backdated to 9 February 2016, and appealed that sentence.
The judgment said a crowd of between 25 and 30 people, many carrying weapons including wooden handles, slash hooks and hatchets, attacked 239 Rathmullen Park. Myers said he and his family threw stones to keep the crowd away from their home because they feared they would be killed if the crowd reached it. He claimed he acted to defend himself and the other occupants. The court noted that a garda described being struck in the face as he tried to leave his patrol car near the crowd.
Myers acknowledged early on that he had broken a window at the adjoining property. He expressed remorse and said he was willing to pay compensation. The sentencing judge treated the deliberate damage and its impact on the homeowner’s property rights as aggravating factors, and noted Myers’s guilty plea, cooperation, admissions and remorse as mitigation.
The Court of Appeal said the sentencing judge had erred in placing the offence in the middle range of seriousness. Although the surrounding events involved “utter mayhem” and heavily armed attackers, the court said Myers’s involvement was at least partly motivated by efforts to defend his family home. Breaking the neighbour’s window could not reasonably be treated as a mid-range offence in these circumstances. The court added that breaking a window in someone’s home could be mid-range in other circumstances.
The court held that the two-year sentence was unduly harsh despite Myers’s 74 previous convictions, including five for criminal damage. It said a custodial sentence was inevitable given his record, while noting that a person with no, or very few minor, convictions might have received a suspended sentence or community service.
The appeal court quashed the original sentence and resentenced Myers to 15 months’ imprisonment, also backdated to 9 February 2016. The judgment noted that he had already spent about 14 months in prison.