The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal against the severity of a three-year prison sentence imposed on Glen Douche for two assaults causing harm and reckless endangerment. The sentence was ordered to run consecutively to the sentence he was already serving for possession of explosives.
Douche had pleaded guilty to all three offences. The assaults arose from a confrontation outside a house in Darndale on 11 July 2009. The judgment said Douche’s co-accused, Mr Howard, stabbed Anthony Byrne and Conor Lunders during a melee. Douche did not personally stab either man; he accepted responsibility on the basis of a joint enterprise. The court noted evidence that he had brought two knives to the scene and had driven a car that clipped Byrne’s ankle.
Lunders suffered several stab wounds, received stitches and had a stent fitted in his kidney. Byrne was stabbed several times and also injured his ankle. At the time of the offences, Douche was on bail for the explosives offence. The sentencing judge was therefore required to impose a consecutive sentence and to treat the offending on bail as an aggravating circumstance.
The sentencing judge imposed three years for one assault and took the other two counts into consideration. He described his approach as sentencing “globally” and considered the explosives sentence to have an effective custodial term of seven years, reflecting the nine-and-a-half-year sentence with its final two-and-a-half years suspended.
On appeal, Douche argued that the judge had mishandled the earlier sentence, lacked enough information to assess a global sentence, and had not sufficiently considered his personal circumstances, including his youth, early guilty plea, remorse, addiction and family. A written argument for partial suspension was not pressed orally. The prosecution maintained that a significant additional sentence was warranted given the injuries, the knives, the separate victims and the fact the offences were committed on bail.
The Court of Appeal found no error of principle. It held that the sentencing judge was entitled to treat seven years as the appropriate custodial term for the explosives offence and was not re-sentencing that case. Although the judge had not expressly named the totality principle, the appeal court concluded that his global approach showed he had taken it into account.
The court also found that the judge had considered the relevant personal circumstances and sentencing options. It noted that Douche’s co-accused received five years, while Douche received a lighter term despite bringing the knives. The court dismissed the appeal; the three-year sentence remained in place.