The Court of Appeal has dismissed Mark Carlisle’s appeal against the severity of a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence for violent disorder, finding no error by the sentencing judge and saying the sentence could not be regarded as excessive in the circumstances.
The sentence was imposed by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 26 July 2018 and dated from that day. A count of assault causing harm was taken into consideration. Carlisle had also appealed his conviction, but the Court of Appeal had dismissed that appeal at an earlier stage.
The case arose from an incident on 12 October 2015 on Captain’s Road, Dublin. Evidence at the sentence hearing was that Mark Conway was making his way to his parents’ house when he encountered a group of five or six young men. After a bottle was thrown at him, his brother, Derek Conway, was punched in the face. Derek Conway said he then saw men kicking Mark Conway in a garden and stamping on his head. He testified that one man stayed behind as the others ran off and delivered eight to twelve kicks while Mark was on the ground. The prosecution alleged that the man who remained was Carlisle.
The sentencing court was told Mark Conway had suffered a skull-base fracture, bleeding within the skull and extensive facial injuries. It also heard that he was later readmitted to hospital with a seizure associated with low blood sodium, was diagnosed with diabetes, and developed an overactive bladder and anxiety disorder.
Carlisle’s appeal argued that the sentencing judge had implicitly set a headline sentence at or near the ten-year maximum. It also challenged the effective consecutive impact of the sentence following a five-year term, and argued that part of the sentence should have been suspended to encourage rehabilitation in light of Carlisle’s history with alcohol.
The Director of Public Prosecutions responded that Carlisle was serving a separate three-year sentence for a firearms offence, imposed on 27 May 2018, concurrently with the sentence under appeal. The DPP said the sentence was proportionate to the offence.
The Court of Appeal described the offence as very serious and noted Carlisle’s significant criminal record, including relevant convictions for violence. It said it could identify no error by the trial judge and, particularly considering the concurrent three-year sentence, could not see how the sentence imposed could be considered severe, much less excessively severe. The court dismissed the appeal.