The Court of Appeal has resentenced a woman who pleaded guilty to making a false statement, replacing a two-year sentence suspended in full with a three-and-a-half-year sentence, of which the final two-and-a-half years were suspended. The court said the offending crossed the custody threshold, while recognising the difficulty of imposing custody after the original sentence had been fully suspended.
The Director of Public Prosecutions applied under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993 to review the sentence imposed at Wicklow Circuit Court on 1 July 2021. The respondent had pleaded guilty to making a false statement contrary to section 12(a) of the Criminal Law Act 1976, an offence carrying a maximum five-year prison sentence.
The case arose after a car collision near Enniskerry in July 2016. The respondent later alleged that the injured party had sexually assaulted her before and during the drive. The Court of Appeal’s judgment recounts that witness interviews contradicted her statement and that the sexual assault investigation ended in January 2018 with a direction from the DPP not to prosecute. The respondent maintained the accusation until pleading guilty on 7 July 2020, nearly four years after the initial events.
The DPP argued that the sentencing judge gave insufficient weight to aggravating factors and general deterrence, particularly by suspending the entire sentence. The respondent submitted that the judge had approached sentencing carefully and that the sentence was within his discretion.
The Court of Appeal described a false sexual offending allegation directed at an individual as inherently serious, citing likely harm to reputation and the stress it could cause. It noted that this case did not involve a prosecution or loss of liberty for the accused person, but said the length of time the allegation persisted and the respondent’s failure to withdraw it when she had opportunities to do so aggravated the offence. The court concluded that a custodial sentence of some dimension was inevitable.
The court acknowledged the guilty plea, expressions of remorse, lack of prior convictions apart from the road traffic matter, and evidence of personal difficulties and efforts to address them. It held those factors did not justify a fully non-custodial sentence. Finding an error of principle in the original disposal, it resentenced the respondent to three-and-a-half years’ imprisonment and suspended the final two-and-a-half years. The judgment does not specify the conditions attached to that suspended portion.