The Court of Appeal has ruled that the Circuit Court had no jurisdiction to partly suspend a sentence of detention imposed on a child in a children detention centre. It answered a consultative case stated in the negative and did not decide whether the suspended part of the sentence could later be activated.
A.S. had pleaded guilty to robbery committed on 20 March 2014. On 25 July 2014, aged 15, A.S. was sentenced to four years’ detention at Trinity House, with the final two years suspended on conditions including keeping the peace and being of good behaviour.
The case returned to the Circuit Court in February 2017 after the prosecution alleged a breach of the bond. Evidence heard there, which A.S. did not contest, was that A.S. escaped from detention in July 2015 and, while unlawfully at large, robbed a passenger on the Dublin Luas system of two mobile phones. A.S. was later convicted of that robbery and of escaping lawful custody. The case stated did not give the penalties for those offences. The Circuit Court also heard that A.S. pleaded guilty to another robbery and criminal damage in 2016 and received detention sentences for those offences in July 2016.
The Circuit Court judge was satisfied that the bond had been breached and was considering whether to require A.S. to serve some or all of the suspended portion. The judge referred two questions to the Court of Appeal: whether there was jurisdiction to suspend part of a child’s detention sentence, and, if so, whether the suspended term could now be activated.
In a judgment delivered by Mr Justice John Edwards on 28 November 2017, the Court of Appeal held that section 99 of the Criminal Justice Act 2006 applies to imprisonment, and that its statutory definition did not include detention in a children detention centre. The court also rejected the prosecution’s argument that the Children Act 2001 implied a general power to suspend such a sentence. It held that the Act’s framework for sentencing children did not provide that power beyond the limited circumstances set out in section 144(9).
The court further held that any former common law power to suspend a child’s detention sentence did not survive the 2001 Act, which replaced the previous juvenile justice framework with a comprehensive statutory scheme. It therefore answered the first question in the negative. Because that answer disposed of the matter, the court did not address whether the suspended term could be activated or whether the reference to section 99 affected the validity of the original sentencing order.