The Court of Appeal increased prison sentences for Mark Loughlin and Philip Perry after finding that the terms imposed for firearms offences were significantly unduly lenient. The court allowed the Director of Public Prosecutions’ sentence review under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993 and set out replacement terms, while leaving both criminal-damage sentences unchanged.
The offences arose from an incident at Clonmoyle, near Monasterevin, in the early hours of 19 June 2015. The judgment said gardaí tried to stop a BMW carrying the men. The car failed to stop and attempted to ram garda vehicles. Loughlin, the front-seat passenger, fired a shotgun from the car window. Gardaí found a loaded sawn-off shotgun and another cartridge in the vehicle. Perry, who was driving, ran from the car and was arrested; Loughlin remained inside.
Both men pleaded guilty at Naas Circuit Criminal Court in December 2015 and were sentenced in July 2016. Loughlin received concurrent terms of up to three and a half years, including for reckless discharge of a firearm and possession of ammunition in suspicious circumstances. Perry received concurrent terms of two years and six months for possession of a firearm in suspicious circumstances and criminal damage.
The appeal challenged the sentencing judge’s assessment of the offence ranges, exceptional circumstances and mitigation. The judge had found that guilty pleas and material assistance to gardaí made the presumptive minimum sentence unjust, but the Court of Appeal noted that the assistance had not been specified. The judgment also recorded Perry’s claim that he did not know a firearm was in the car until shortly before he ran from it; he nevertheless pleaded guilty to the possession offence. Loughlin confirmed Perry’s account of his lack of prior knowledge.
The Court of Appeal described the offences as remarkably serious, particularly the deliberate firing of the shotgun while gardaí were pursuing the car. Applying sentencing ranges from an earlier judgment, it set headline terms of seven years for the relevant firearms offences. It then reduced those terms to reflect personal circumstances, prison conduct and other mitigation.
For Loughlin, the court imposed five years for the discharge offence and five years for the firearms possession offence. His criminal-damage sentence remained unchanged. For Perry, it imposed four years for the possession offence, with the unserved portion suspended for two years from the judgment date, subject to a €100 bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour. The court gave credit for the sentence already served, noting that Perry had completed his original prison term and was seeking work and caring for his young son. His criminal-damage sentence remained unchanged. All sentences run concurrently from the dates directed by the sentencing court.