The Court of Appeal imposed a custodial sentence on John Kerrigan for threatening a hospital security worker with a syringe, after setting aside the fully suspended four-year sentence he had received at first instance.
In an ex tempore judgment delivered on 19 March 2019, the court said the original sentence was unduly lenient because the seriousness of the offence required custody. It fixed the headline sentence at four years, backdated it to 24 April 2017, and suspended the final year to reflect mitigation and encourage Kerrigan’s rehabilitation.
The offence occurred at St James’s Hospital on 13 June 2015. The judgment said Kerrigan and a female companion were asked to leave after drinking in the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department. They later remained on the hospital grounds, where security worker John Paul Kavanagh found them looking into cars in the car park.
When Kavanagh again told them to leave, Kerrigan took a syringe from his companion’s bag, brandished it and made lunging movements in Kavanagh’s direction. The judgment records that Kerrigan was alleged to have said: “I am going to fill you with the viruses. I will fill you with the viruses”. Kavanagh’s victim impact statement said he was greatly frightened, suffered nightmares and lost confidence.
Kerrigan pleaded guilty after CCTV was shown to him at a pre-trial listing. The court noted his addiction problems, efforts to address them and clear urinalysis reports, as well as a reasonably early guilty plea. However, a later probation report recorded relapses, limited insight into the seriousness of the offence and a continued high risk of reoffending. The report also linked the relapses to two bereavements that had affected him heavily.
The court said the offence’s gravity required a custodial sentence to mark society’s censure and provide general and specific deterrence. It considered that the first-instance judge had correctly assessed the four-year headline term, but erred by suspending it in full. The final year was suspended; the judgment gives no other new suspension conditions. Backdating the sentence was described as recognition of Kerrigan’s rehabilitation progress, although that progress was not sufficient to avoid custody altogether.