The Court of Appeal has dismissed Leonard Dumbrell’s appeal against a three-year prison sentence for taking a vehicle without authority and two dangerous driving offences. It held that the sentencing judge was entitled to impose the custodial term and had not made the alleged error of principle by declining to suspend part of it.
Dumbrell had pleaded guilty to the three offences. Dublin Circuit Criminal Court sentenced him on 30 July 2015 to three years for taking the vehicle and five months for each dangerous driving count, with all terms concurrent and credit for time spent in custody. It also disqualified him from driving for five years in relation to one dangerous driving count.
The appeal focused on rehabilitation. Dumbrell argued that the sentencing judge had not given adequate weight to his efforts to address drug addiction, including treatment and rehabilitation while on bail and in custody, or sufficiently considered community-based or partly suspended sentences. The Director of Public Prosecutions argued that the sentences were appropriate given the seriousness of the offences and Dumbrell’s conduct of the case, including breaches of bail that led to bench warrants.
The judgment said the offending began on 2 January 2013, when the car’s owner briefly left it running with the keys in the ignition. Dumbrell drove away. A garda later pursued the vehicle through the city. The judgment described it breaking a red light, making illegal turns, weaving through traffic and mounting a pedestrian median on O’Connell Bridge, narrowly missing pedestrians, before crashing near Temple Bar Square. Dumbrell ran from the car and was arrested nearby.
A probation report described a difficult background, including domestic violence, unemployment and drug addiction, and recorded a four-week residential rehabilitation course at Aiseiri in County Wexford in October and November 2014. It assessed him as being at high risk of reoffending within 12 months. The sentencing judge had acknowledged his background and rehabilitation efforts, but cited his failures to appear in court and breach of bail as reasons she lacked confidence in structuring a sentence around supervision in the community.
The Court of Appeal said the three-year term was lenient given the seriousness of the offending and Dumbrell’s relevant previous convictions, while noting that many were committed when he was very young. It found the sentence reflected the mitigating circumstances and said prison offered an opportunity to gain skills and education. The court also referred to positive reports about his progress in the education unit at Midlands Prison. The appeal was dismissed.