The Court of Appeal has refused a Director of Public Prosecutions application to increase a five-year sentence imposed on a woman who pleaded guilty to causing serious harm in Galway. The court said the sentence was very lenient, but not unduly lenient in the exceptional circumstances of the case.
The woman pleaded guilty in May 2014 to one count of causing serious harm. Galway Circuit Criminal Court sentenced her in April 2016 to five years in prison, suspended in full for five years. The DPP sought a review under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993, arguing that the sentence was unduly lenient.
The Court of Appeal judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Edwards on 23 March 2017, described the assault as taking place at The Plots Park in Woodquay, Galway City, in July 2013. After an argument, the woman bit the injured party’s lower lip, removing tissue that surgeons could not reattach. The treating surgeon said the injury would leave significant permanent scarring and predicted a permanent change to the injured party’s facial shape.
The injured party told the sentencing court that she had lasting numbness and difficulty speaking and eating, and was self-conscious about her appearance. She was awaiting further reconstructive surgery at the time of the sentence.
The DPP argued that the sentencing judge had failed to give sufficient weight to the seriousness of the assault and its impact, and should have required the woman to serve some time in custody. The respondent relied on her guilty plea, remorse, co-operation, lack of previous convictions, mental health difficulties, addiction history and efforts to engage with treatment and probation services.
The appeal court said the sentencing judge had accepted that the offence fell in the mid-range of seriousness and set a seven-year headline sentence at the upper end of that range. It found that this assessment did not depart from the norm. The issue was whether the full suspension was appropriate.
The court said an immediate custodial element would ordinarily be expected for an offence of this seriousness, absent substantial special reasons and particularly exceptional circumstances. It considered the respondent’s significant personal adversities, her demonstrated efforts to address them, her recent childbirth and pregnancy, and the potential effect of imprisonment on her young children, alongside the offence and the harm caused.
It concluded that these circumstances, taken together, were sufficiently exceptional to justify the sentencing judge’s decision. The DPP’s application was dismissed, leaving the five-year sentence suspended in full for five years in place.