The Court of Criminal Appeal has dismissed Wayne Wallace’s application for leave to appeal the severity of his nine-year sentence for two robberies, treating the application as the hearing of the appeal.
The court said the trial judge’s failure to give express reasons for making the sentences consecutive did not, in the circumstances, require intervention. It found the overall sentence proportionate and said there had been no error in principle.
Wallace pleaded guilty in the Circuit Criminal Court in Dundalk to robbing the Value Centre Cash and Carry in Dundalk on 3 December 2001 and Ferguson’s Caravan Park in Carlingford on 15 July 2002. The trial judge imposed six years for each offence, to run consecutively, and suspended the final three years of the second term. The effective sentence was nine years, backdated to 29 September 2002, when Wallace entered custody.
The appeal court described both robberies as very serious. It said the six-year terms were light given the offences and that consecutive sentences were not an error in principle. It also considered the totality of the sentence: 12 years imposed, with three years suspended. The court said it would not have been inappropriate to impose 12 years for each robbery, with three years suspended, to run concurrently.
In addressing the reasons for consecutive terms, the appeal court said sentencing courts should give reasons, but that the extent of this duty depends on the decision and circumstances. The trial judge had given a lengthy reserved judgment setting out reasons for the sentences generally, though not expressly for making them consecutive. The appeal court concluded that the reasons and the facts described in that judgment made clear why the judge considered consecutive sentences appropriate.
At sentencing, the trial judge described the Value Centre robbery as carefully planned and involving armed, masked raiders who tied up staff; some were hit or kicked, and the manager had a gun pushed against the back of his head. The judge said cash and goods worth about €351,000 were taken and not recovered. In the Carlingford robbery, the judge said people wearing Garda uniforms used a ruse to enter a home, tied up family members, displayed firearms and took money. The judge also cited Wallace’s guilty pleas, account to gardaí, expressed remorse and rehabilitation in prison as matters in his favour.
Wallace’s appeal grounds included claims that the trial judge had failed to account for a co-accused’s sentence and had not allowed him to call character witnesses or submit an apology letter. The appeal court’s reasoning addressed the consecutive sentences and overall sentence. It dismissed the application and did not alter the sentence.