The Court of Appeal substituted a five-year prison sentence for Mark O’Shea with a five-year sentence whose final 12 months were suspended for two years after his release. It found that the sentencing judge had given insufficient weight to the cumulative effect of mitigating factors, including that the device was not viable and O’Shea did not know the home belonged to a prison officer.
O’Shea had pleaded guilty to possessing an explosive in suspicious circumstances, contrary to section 4 of the Explosive Substances Act 1883, as amended. Dublin Circuit Criminal Court imposed the five-year sentence on 23 November 2017, backdated to 14 June 2017, when he first went into custody. He appealed on grounds of severity.
The Court of Appeal judgment, delivered by Ms Justice Máire Whelan on 19 October 2018, said a pipe bomb was found in the driveway of a prison officer’s home in Dublin 3 on 11 June 2017. The officer’s young son found it while playing outside and brought it into the house. Family members handled it before the officer realised it was a bomb. The family left the house and a bomb-disposal team attended.
CCTV showed O’Shea placing the device under a car. During a garda interview, he said two people had asked him to put an item under a car for money, and he knew it was a pipe bomb. The court said he did not know the residents included a prison officer. The judgment recorded that his reward was €20 or two trays of tablets.
A ballistics examination found the device contained shotgun cartridge pellets and propellant. The fuse was missing and was never recovered. Evidence at sentencing was that the bomb could not have exploded without a fuse. The Court of Appeal described the device as not viable, while also stressing that O’Shea knew he was placing a pipe bomb at a private home and acted with indifference to the risk of harm.
The court noted his early guilty plea, cooperation with gardaí, remorse, efforts at rehabilitation in custody and drug-free status at sentencing. It also recorded his cross-addiction to heroin, diamorphine pills and alcohol, and that he had been exploited by others. The court held that the sentencing judge had taken account of these matters but had not given enough weight to their combined effect.
The substituted sentence suspended the final 12 months for two years after O’Shea’s release. The suspension was conditional on his entering a bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for 24 months from his release.