The Court of Criminal Appeal has reduced Paul Murray’s sentence for a large social welfare fraud from 12½ years to nine years, suspending the final year on conditions. It held that the original total sentence breached the totality principle, while finding that the fraud was sustained, systematic and serious.
Murray had appealed the severity of sentences imposed by the Circuit Court after he pleaded guilty in July 2011 to possessing a false passport and 25 sample counts of social welfare fraud. The sentencing judge imposed six months for each of the 25 fraud counts, with the sentences arranged consecutively to each other, and a three-year sentence for the passport offence. The fraud sentences ran concurrently with the passport sentence, producing a total of 12½ years. They were to start from 19 October 2010, when Murray went into custody.
The appeal court affirmed the three-year passport sentence. It replaced the fraud sentences with three consecutive three-year terms on sample counts dating from 2006, 2008 and 2010. The passport sentence runs concurrently with the first of those terms; the other offences were taken into account. The final year of the term on the 2010 count was suspended because of Murray’s guilty plea and cooperation with gardaí. He must keep the peace and remain of good behaviour under his own bond of €200.
The judgment said the fraud involved claims for jobseeker’s allowance, disability allowance and supplementary welfare allowance using nine identities, including those of Murray’s brothers. It put the total taken at just under €249,000, of which about €11,151 had been repaid. The court stressed that the brothers whose identities were used were innocent.
The court said significant and systematic fraud against public revenue should generally attract an immediate and appreciable custodial sentence, subject to the circumstances of each case. But it concluded that 12½ years for these offences was disproportionate overall. It also treated the prolonged fraud, the misuse of relatives’ identities, falsified passports and driving licences, and a previous social welfare fraud conviction in the United Kingdom as aggravating factors.
Murray was 63 at the time of the judgment, delivered on 27 February 2012. The judgment said he had lived in Thailand with his partner and held a 40 per cent interest in their apartment. It recorded that further repayment from that interest was not envisaged.