The Court of Appeal has replaced a fully suspended sentence imposed on Deirdre Brady for money laundering with a four-year term, of which the final 12 months are suspended. The court said she must serve a period in custody, though it did not specify a release date.
Brady had pleaded guilty to 18 money laundering offences involving about €770,000. The offending, which took place from 2012 to 2016, involved concealing or disguising criminal proceeds and converting, transferring, handling, acquiring, possessing or using them. The Special Criminal Court had imposed concurrent three-year prison sentences, all suspended for three years.
The Director of Public Prosecutions applied under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993 to review the sentences as unduly lenient. The Court of Appeal allowed the application, quashed the original sentences and resentenced Brady.
The appeal court inferred that the Special Criminal Court had used a four-year headline sentence, then reduced it by 25 per cent for the guilty pleas to three years. It found that starting point too low. The appeal judges assessed the appropriate headline sentence at six years on each count, taking account of the money involved, the duration of the offending, Brady’s role and knowledge, her relationship to her co-accused husband, and the criminal organisation that generated the funds.
The court said the custody threshold had been crossed. It noted that illicit funds had passed through Brady’s accounts and had been used, in part, to fund mortgages and a family wedding. It also recognised that she was not directly involved in the criminal organisation’s activities and had acted under her husband’s instruction to some extent. The court said there was no evidence that she had been subjected to actual duress.
The appeal judges accepted that Brady’s early guilty pleas, cooperation, previous good character, personal circumstances and progress in addressing tax liabilities warranted substantial mitigation. But they found that suspending the full three-year term imposed by the trial court gave excessive weight to mitigation and took the outcome below the custody threshold without exceptional circumstances.
The appeal court reduced the six-year headline sentence by four years for mitigation, including the guilty pleas, leaving four years to serve. It suspended the final 12 months on condition that Brady enter a €100 bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for two years after her release. The court said the custodial sentence was intended to mark the seriousness of the offending and provide deterrence, while the suspended portion recognised her low risk of reoffending and supported her rehabilitation.