The Court of Appeal has dismissed Jason Heaphy’s appeal against the refusal of relief over the activation of a three-year suspended prison sentence. It found that the 2008 sentence did not fully meet a statutory requirement, but concluded that the error did not deprive the sentencing court of jurisdiction or make Heaphy’s detention unlawful.
Heaphy had been sentenced at Cork Circuit Court in February 2008 to 10 years in prison for a drug offence, with the final three years suspended on a bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for three years after his release. He was released in February 2013. After being found guilty of two further drug offences committed in May 2015, he was sentenced in November 2015 to two concurrent three-year terms, to run consecutively to the activated suspended sentence.
Heaphy challenged the November 2015 order, arguing that the 2008 sentence lacked a valid written record, that the bond had expired three years after his imprisonment began, and that the original sentence did not comply with section 99(2)(b) of the Criminal Justice Act 2006. He also argued that the Circuit Court could not activate the suspended portion without a compliant order.
The Court of Appeal found that section 99(2)(b) required a person receiving a partly suspended sentence to keep the peace and be of good behaviour during both the prison term and the suspension period. The 2008 sentence specified the condition only for three years after release, and therefore did not fully comply with that requirement.
However, the court held that the omission was an error made within the sentencing court’s jurisdiction. It said the defect benefited Heaphy and caused no adverse impact warranting the exceptional remedy of certiorari. It also found that the evidence before the Circuit Court in 2015 was sufficient to establish the terms of the 2008 sentence, and that the bond ran for three years after release. A later-generated, unsigned document that suggested a different start date was not a reliable record of the original order.
The court refused Heaphy’s claim for habeas corpus relief and declined to extend the time limit for his judicial review application. It dismissed the appeal on all grounds.