The Court of Appeal set aside Moise Rostas’s three-year prison sentence for stealing €20,000 worth of jewellery from a Castleblayney shop after finding that the sentencing judge had proceeded on an incorrect understanding of who was present during the theft. The appeal court imposed the same three-year term, but suspended its final nine months subject to conditions.
Rostas had pleaded guilty and was convicted at Monaghan Circuit Criminal Court on 12 January 2016. He was sentenced a week later, with the term backdated to 4 June 2015. The Court of Appeal delivered its judgment on 26 May 2016.
The theft took place at McGuigans Jewellers on Main Street, Castleblayney, on 28 December 2012. The court said four people entered the shop: a woman distracted the sole customer while others took jewellery from a display cabinet. The customer and staff member, who was in a back room, were unaware of the theft as it happened. The shop owner, Mr Donal McGuigan, was not inside. The jewellery was not recovered.
The appeal court found that the sentencing judge appeared to have treated Mr McGuigan and a staff member as present and aware of the crime, and to have regarded their terror as an aggravating factor. It said that if they had witnessed the theft, that would have been a significant aggravating circumstance. But the actual absence of the owner and staff meant the sentence had been imposed on an erroneous basis, requiring the appeal court to set it aside and re-sentence Rostas.
The court also recognised the serious nature of the planned theft, the substantial loss, Rostas’s initial denial and his departure to Scotland while on bail before returning under a European Arrest Warrant. It considered his guilty plea, lack of previous convictions and evidence of rehabilitation in prison. The judgment said the shop owner’s experience of being robbed could itself be frightening, and that the uninsured €20,000 loss may have contributed to the closure of his business.
The re-sentencing order was three years’ imprisonment, with the final nine months suspended for two years after release. The suspension was conditional on Rostas paying €5,000 compensation to the State for onward transmission to Mr McGuigan and entering a €100 bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour. The judgment does not state a new commencement date for the re-imposed sentence.