The Court of Appeal has quashed sentences imposed on two men for arson and false imprisonment and replaced them with nine-year terms on the relevant counts. It also imposed a consecutive 12-month sentence on one respondent for a later assault.
In a judgment delivered on 8 October 2018, the court allowed applications by the Director of Public Prosecutions to review the sentences as unduly lenient. The original sentences were imposed by the Circuit Criminal Court in Carlow on 8 December 2017. The Court of Appeal said the pre-mitigation sentences identified for arson and false imprisonment were significantly too low.
The case arose from events beginning on Christmas Eve 2015, when Daniel Wanzuk arrived at the respondents’ home, Shalom, in Borris, County Carlow. The judgment recounts that he was held, assaulted and threatened over several days. He was bound and gagged, placed in a car boot and transferred to the boot of his own vehicle, which was set alight while he was inside. He escaped as the fire developed. The judgment also describes further threats and assaults, including electric shocks to his legs.
Wanzuk escaped on 26 December 2015. Gardaí later found 16 cannabis plants at the property, and his car was found burnt out at Cromelish, Carlow. At the sentencing hearing, the trial judge concluded beyond reasonable doubt that the incident was motivated by cannabis, rather than missing money. The Court of Appeal said that conclusion was one the trial judge was entitled to reach.
The appeal court said the arson was not an ordinary car fire because a restrained person was locked in the boot, and described it as potentially on the cusp of attempted murder. It held that the pre-mitigation headline sentence for each of the arson and false imprisonment offences could not have been less than 12 years. In weighing mitigation, it noted guilty pleas entered on the morning the trial was due to begin, the absence of relevant previous convictions and supportive community testimonials. The court said the pleas had value, although they were not early pleas.
For counts involving Wanzuk, the court imposed nine years’ imprisonment on the relevant counts for each respondent, quashing the Circuit Court sentences. The sentences run from the same date as the original sentences.
The court also imposed 12 months on one respondent for Count 15, concerning a later assault on another injured party. It ordered that term to run consecutively to the other sentences, citing the time between the incidents and that the offence occurred after the respondent had been arrested and interviewed about the other matters. The court said it took account of the disappointment of resentencing after the respondents had already begun serving their sentences, and imposed terms below what it considered appropriate at first instance.