The Court of Appeal dismissed Don Duggan’s appeals against sentences imposed for burglary, a threat to kill and other offences, finding no error of principle in either the Clonmel or Nenagh sentences.
In a judgment delivered on 26 April 2018, Mr Justice Hedigan said the Clonmel sentence was within the range available to the sentencing judge. Duggan had received a 10-year sentence, with the final four years suspended on strict conditions, for burglary and threatening to kill. The six-year custodial portion was to begin after a sentence he was already serving expired.
The court reviewed the burglary at a woman’s home on 23 December 2015. Her 10-year-old son was inside alone and escaped through a window to a neighbour’s house. When the woman returned, she encountered Duggan carrying property and feared her son had been harmed. The judgment said Duggan threatened to shoot her before escaping. The court noted the trauma to the woman and her son, the threat and Duggan’s previous convictions. It also said the sentencing judge had considered his guilty plea, heroin addiction, cooperation, remorse and rehabilitation efforts. The appeal against the Clonmel sentence was dismissed.
The second appeal concerned offences committed between 18 and 24 August 2015. Duggan received six years for a burglary at the home of Mrs Kehoe, with three years suspended, and concurrent sentences for four other offences. The sentences were ordered to run after the Clonmel sentence. The offences included burglaries at unoccupied properties, taking a motor vehicle and stealing €6 from an unlocked car. Property worth about €1,500 was taken from Mrs Kehoe’s home and was not recovered.
Duggan argued that the Nenagh sentences should have run concurrently with the Clonmel sentence, among other grounds. The Court of Appeal said consecutive sentences were not mandatory in this case, but the sentencing judge had discretion to impose them because the offences were separate and unconnected. It found that the judge had considered the guilty pleas, admissions, apology, addiction and rehabilitation, and had taken account of the totality principle. The appeal against the Nenagh sentences was also dismissed.