The Court of Appeal has reduced the effective prison term imposed on a young woman for an assault that left another woman with severe and permanent damage to her left eye after an eighteenth birthday party in Navan.
S.W. pleaded guilty to assault causing harm arising from an incident in a public house on 26 January 2013. She was 16 at the time of the offence and 17 when sentenced in November 2014.
The injured party, identified as N.F., was a young mother with an 11-month-old child. She suffered serious damage to her left eye and required several operations. At sentencing, her visual acuity was recorded as six out of 24 and further surgery was considered likely.
There was a dispute over the precise mechanism of the assault. On appeal, S.W.'s lawyers argued that the sentencing judge had proceeded on the more serious version that she assaulted N.F. with a glass in her hand. The Court of Appeal noted that her guilty plea had instead been entered and accepted on the basis of recklessness, involving the glass being thrown at or in the direction of N.F. The court dealt with the appeal on that basis.
It was also accepted that the incident occurred when S.W. was encircled by a group of young people and falsely accused of theft.
The Court of Appeal found that imprisonment was justified because of the seriousness of the injury. However, it held that the sentencing judge had given insufficient weight to S.W.'s age. That amounted to an error in principle requiring a fresh sentencing exercise.
The court also considered her subsequent progress in the Dóchas Centre, where it was reported that she was a model prisoner, had passed her Leaving Certificate and completed rehabilitation programmes.
The original sentence of three and a half years with 12 months suspended was quashed. It was replaced by three and a half years with the final 21 months suspended, subject to good behaviour and no further contact with N.F.