The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal against an eight-year sentence, with the final two years suspended, imposed for handling stolen vehicles. The court upheld the sentence, although it said it was possibly at the severe end of the range that could lawfully have been imposed.
The appellant had pleaded guilty to four counts under section 17 of the Criminal Justice (Theft and Fraud Offences) Act 2001. The indictment contained 11 counts, and the plea agreement allowed evidence to be presented at sentencing on the full facts. The original sentence was imposed by Leitrim Circuit Criminal Court on 14 May 2019. The appeal judgment was delivered on 2 March 2020.
The Court of Appeal said the offences were part of a professional, commercial conspiracy involving stolen vans taken from the United Kingdom, altered to appear to be other vehicles and sold in Ireland. It accepted that the sentencing judge could consider this wider context when assessing the appellant’s role, while holding him accountable for no more than 11 vehicles and recording convictions on four counts. The court said the judge had not sentenced him for the wider operation or for the roughly 70 vehicles detected during the investigation.
The court cited evidence of £103,809 in losses to insurers of the original owners and €50,150 in losses to Irish purchasers whose vehicles were repossessed. It agreed that the offending was organised, sustained and profit-driven, and that the eight-year headline sentence was appropriate for the appellant’s central role. The judge had reduced the sentence to six years on each count, to run concurrently, after considering mitigation; the final two years were suspended.
The appeal challenged the weight given to the long period since the offences, the guilty plea, compensation offers, the appellant’s caring responsibilities, and the sentences given to two co-accused. The Court of Appeal found that the sentencing judge had considered those matters, including the plea’s value, the appellant’s wife’s ill health, testimonials, remorse and proposed compensation. It found the discount for mitigation adequate and said the co-accused had lesser roles: the appellant had recruited and directed them.
The court found no error of principle, inadequate mitigation discount or basis to alter the sentence. It dismissed the appeal.