The Court of Appeal has quashed a sentence it found unduly lenient for a man who pleaded guilty to possessing heroin worth €1.251 million for sale or supply, and resentenced him to six years in prison, with the final two years suspended.
The judgment, delivered ex tempore by Isobel Kennedy J on 22 March 2024, arose from an application by the Director of Public Prosecutions under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993. The appeal concerned the sentence imposed on 8 May 2023. The Director argued that the sentence did not reflect the value of the drugs, the respondent’s role, his previous conviction or the need for deterrence.
The offending involved two quantities of diamorphine. Gardaí said surveillance and dashcam footage showed the respondent passing a supermarket bag to another person. The bag was later found in a vehicle and contained 12 sealed packages valued in the judgment at €831,000. A search of the respondent’s home found six more packages, valued at €420,000. He admitted involvement in the drugs found at home and said he had built up a drugs debt. He pleaded guilty to a single combined count covering both locations.
The sentencing judge imposed a headline sentence of six and a half years, reduced to four and a half years, with the final two years suspended. The judge found exceptional circumstances allowing departure from the presumptive minimum sentence. The Director did not challenge that finding in the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal said the Director had to establish a substantial or gross departure from the appropriate sentence before it could intervene. It rejected the respondent’s description of his role as near the bottom of the enterprise. The judges found the drugs’ value and the respondent’s role significant, and said reducing a recognised drugs debt was a benefit to him. They concluded that the original six-and-a-half-year headline sentence represented a significant departure from the norm and that the sentence was unduly lenient.
The court set a pre-mitigation sentence of ten years, then reduced the headline sentence to six years in light of what it described as substantial, in some respects unique, mitigation. This included the respondent’s conduct over the intervening years, care for others, charitable fundraising, rehabilitation and favourable prison report. The court suspended the final two years on the same terms and conditions as the lower court.
The judgment records the respondent’s previous conviction for assault causing serious harm and notes that the sentencing court had treated it as old. The appeal court said it did not aggravate the current offence but reduced the mitigation available. The appeal court’s order replaced the original sentence with its own sentence.