The Court of Criminal Appeal reduced the prison sentences imposed on Oliver Shovelin for dangerous driving that killed John Sheridan and caused serious, permanent injuries to Deirdre O’Brien. It cut the sentence for causing death from seven and a half years to five years, and the sentence for causing serious harm from six years to four years. The terms remain concurrent, and the court upheld the lifetime driving disqualification.
The appeal concerned sentence severity, not the convictions. Shovelin had been convicted after a trial in the Dublin Circuit Court. The offences arose from a collision at Cookstown, Ardee, Co Louth, on 11 July 2004. The Court of Criminal Appeal delivered judgment on 27 April 2009.
Evidence at trial included accounts that, for 30 or 40 minutes before the crash, Shovelin’s van was driven at high speed and erratically. Witnesses said it was at times on the wrong side of the road, including on the opposite hard shoulder. One witness thought Shovelin appeared to have his eyes closed. The van collided with a car driven by O’Brien. Sheridan, 19, who had been travelling in the van, died; O’Brien suffered severe permanent injuries. Shovelin suffered multiple injuries, including a significant head injury, and had no memory of the collision. His condition prevented police from interviewing him or testing for alcohol. A witness who suspected alcohol said they could smell none in the van.
The sentencing judge treated the prolonged dangerous driving, Shovelin’s previous road-traffic convictions, the death and serious injury, and his unfamiliarity with a van bought the day before as aggravating factors. The judge also criticised Shovelin’s response to the evidence and his lack of expressed concern for O’Brien. The defence argued on appeal that he had been punished for contesting the case, that his injuries and remorse deserved greater weight, and that the absence of alcohol should mitigate sentence.
The appeal court said dangerous-driving cases turn on their own facts and do not lend themselves to uniform sentences. It held that the sentencing judge had taken an excessively punitive approach, influenced significantly by Shovelin’s failure to make concessions at trial and by factors including his brain injury. It nevertheless upheld the judge’s assessment of the main aggravating factors and found a “singular absence of mitigating factors,” including no guilty plea or demonstrated helpful attitude.
The court substituted five years for dangerous driving causing death and four years for dangerous driving causing serious harm. Both sentences run concurrently. The lifetime driving ban remains in force.