The Court of Appeal has dismissed John Flaherty’s appeal against the severity of his sentence for manslaughter, holding that the sentencing judge made no error of principle.
Flaherty received 10 years’ imprisonment for manslaughter, with the final two and a half years suspended unconditionally. A concurrent two-year sentence was imposed for assault causing harm. Both sentences were directed to begin after the expiry of a reactivated two-year suspended sentence from an earlier case.
The appeal concerned whether the sentencing judge had given sufficient credit for time Flaherty spent on remand, properly considered the totality of the sentences, and imposed an excessive sentence. The Court of Appeal said the judge could not backdate the manslaughter sentence to the start of that remand because the activated sentence had to be served first. The sentencing judge had instead suspended an additional 12 months, beyond the 18 months he said he would otherwise have suspended, to account for the remand period.
The court said full credit for pre-sentence custody is generally the practice, but is not mandatory. A sentencing judge may give limited or no credit in appropriate cases, with due regard to the totality principle. It also held that the judge could consider Flaherty’s recent conviction for a serious violent offence and his having committed the new offence while subject to a suspended sentence, even though that sentence was activated.
The judgment recounts that on 10 June 2010 Flaherty entered the home of Amy Quigley, with whom he had an on-and-off relationship, and found her in bed with Patrick Murphy. After punching Murphy, who was helpless in bed, Flaherty left the bedroom, took a knife from the kitchen and returned. Murphy was stabbed repeatedly and died. Quigley and Flaherty had three young children; the judgment says one of Flaherty’s infant children witnessed the assault. Murphy was the father of a young girl.
The court agreed with the sentencing judge’s assessment of the manslaughter as within the mid-to-upper range of seriousness and found the suspended portion of the sentence adequately respected totality in the circumstances. The appeal was dismissed. The judgment does not alter the original sentences.