The Court of Appeal reduced Ian Dent’s five-year prison sentence for violent disorder on Dublin’s quays to three years and suspended the final 12 months, subject to a bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for 12 months after his release. It upheld his separate two-year sentence for violent disorder at Merchant’s Arch.
Dent had been convicted by a jury of both offences, which arose from incidents on 29 April 2012. The sentencing judge imposed concurrent sentences in July 2014. Dent appealed their severity.
The court said Dent’s involvement was less serious than that of co-accused Anthony Clifford, who admitted striking the blows that injured the Russell brothers. The evidence did not show Dent armed himself or inflicted injuries. CCTV from Merchant’s Arch showed him trying to hold back some companions. For the later incident, the court said his participation appeared confined to pursuing the Americans and their companions in a menacing manner.
The prosecution had expressly told the sentencing judge it was not relying on joint enterprise. The Court of Appeal therefore said Dent could not be treated as responsible for Clifford’s assaults. It nevertheless found no error in the sentencing judge considering the injuries as context for the offending, or in treating Dent’s failure to assist the injured people as an aggravating circumstance.
The appeal court found the sentencing judge had given too much weight to Dent’s previous convictions and too little to evidence of his progress after the offences. The court said he had taken meaningful steps to address addiction, stayed out of trouble and made progress towards rehabilitation. The sentencing remarks did not address whether rehabilitation could be encouraged through the sentence. The court upheld the sentencing judge’s consideration of Dent’s age and found no error in the two-year sentence for the Merchant’s Arch offence.
The court allowed the appeal on the quays count, set aside that five-year sentence and resentenced Dent. It set an indicative sentence of four years, reduced to three to account for mitigation. After considering additional prison course certificates, therapy information, testimonials and Dent’s letter of apology, it suspended the final year on the stated conditions. The two-year Merchant’s Arch sentence remains in place.