The Court of Appeal has varied a sentence imposed on John Stokes for theft offences involving claims for jobseekers allowance and rent allowance, ordering that he serve 18 months in custody.
In an ex tempore judgment delivered on 20 July 2018, the court allowed a Director of Public Prosecutions application described in the judgment as an appeal or review of the sentence. Stokes had pleaded guilty to 46 sample counts out of 343 theft counts. The counts covered claims made between 2 July 2008 and 11 December 2013, during which he claimed €55,543 in jobseekers allowance and €54,916 in rent allowance.
The judgment said Stokes rented a house in Sallins, Co Kildare, to carry out the fraud. It said he adopted the identity of someone living outside the jurisdiction and obtained that person’s birth certificate, while already receiving disability benefit in his own name at his true home.
The Circuit Court had imposed a four-and-a-half-year sentence, suspended in full subject to terms that included repayment. Stokes repaid €4,000 within the specified period. A further €2,000 was later repaid, apparently through deductions from payments owed to him by the Department of Social Welfare. The judgment said he had also been paying €28 a week from social welfare receipts for a significant period.
The Director argued that the sentencing judge gave undue weight to mitigating factors, including Stokes’s depression, admissions, guilty plea and expressed remorse. The appeal court noted an apparent factual error in the sentencing judge’s reference to Stokes being drug-free: it said there was no substantial evidence that he had had a drug problem or lived a chaotic life. It also said the probation report indicated a lack of insight concerning the impact on the public purse.
The court accepted that significant mitigating factors were present, but found no exceptional circumstances to justify suspending the sentence in full. It concluded the sentence was unduly lenient to that extent and said partial suspension of the final two years would have been justified. Taking account of subsequent repayments and continuing deductions, the court varied the order so that three years of the sentence would be suspended on the same terms. It said Stokes would therefore serve 18 months in custody.