The Court of Criminal Appeal ruled that a sentence review application by the Director of Public Prosecutions was lodged in time, rejecting an objection that it had missed the statutory deadline. The court said it would fix a date to hear the application; it did not decide whether the sentence should be changed.
The application concerns a four-year prison sentence imposed on John McCabe by the Central Criminal Court after he pleaded guilty to aggravated sexual assault. The offence was committed against a young woman in Dundalk on 13 September 2002. The sentence was suspended after the trial judge was told that the woman was prepared to accept €15,000 offered by McCabe as compensation.
The sentence was imposed on 11 October 2004. The DPP’s notice was posted to McCabe’s solicitors on 5 November, but the original notice was lodged with the Court of Criminal Appeal on 8 November. McCabe argued that the 28-day period included the day the sentence was imposed, making 7 November the deadline and the application late. The DPP argued that because the final day fell on a Sunday, the notice could be lodged on the next day the court office was open.
The court agreed that the sentencing date counted as the first day of the 28-day period, under the Interpretation Act 1937. It also held that when the final day for lodging an application falls on a day the court office is closed, the deadline extends to the next day it is open. The court applied that principle even though the deadline was set by statute.
The judges said the Criminal Justice Act 1993 gave the court no inherent power to extend the deadline. They found, however, that the notice was in time under the rule for a deadline falling on a court-office closure day. The court did not rule on the merits of the DPP’s sentence review application, and its judgment records no decision to increase or otherwise alter the sentence.