The Court of Appeal has dismissed Michael Rae’s appeal against the severity of a five-year sentence for criminal damage by fire, with the final year suspended. The court said the sentence involved no error of principle and was within the permissible range.
The sentence was imposed in the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on 14 June 2018. Rae had faced counts of criminal damage to a dwelling and a motor vehicle, and endangerment. At the prosecution’s request, the sentencing court dealt with the dwelling damage count and took the other two matters into consideration.
The charges arose from an incident at Knockmore Park, Tallaght, on 26 May 2017. The judgment says CCTV showed Rae filling a plastic bottle with petrol at a nearby filling station. Footage from a nearby house showed a man setting the bottle alight and throwing it at the Brazil family’s home. The car outside was set on fire, and the house sustained damage; smoke spread to its front. The judgment described the incident as, in essence, a petrol bombing.
The sentencing judge set a pre-mitigation sentence of seven years, reduced it to five years and suspended the final year. Rae’s appeal argued that seven years was an inappropriate starting point because it was the statutory maximum for endangerment, and that aggravating factors had been counted twice. The Court of Appeal rejected both criticisms, reading the sentencing remarks as a whole and finding that the judge had considered both the seriousness of the conduct and the mitigating factors.
Those factors included Rae’s guilty plea, family circumstances and lack of previous convictions for similar offending. The judgment records 29 previous District Court convictions, including two for non-arson criminal damage and 15 traffic offences. The appellate court concluded that the sentence was not outside the available range and dismissed the appeal.