The Court of Appeal ruled that sentences imposed on Michael Casey and David Casey for a planned series of rural burglaries and criminal damage were unduly lenient. It resentenced each man to an aggregate six years and four months in custody, backdated to when he first went into custody for these matters. The individual sentences are concurrent.
The Director of Public Prosecutions had applied under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993 to review the sentences imposed by the Circuit Court in December 2016. The Court of Appeal first concluded that the sentences were unduly lenient to an appreciable degree, then allowed the parties to make further submissions on sentence before resentencing.
The offences arose from events on 27 August 2015. Four homes were targeted in Cappamore and surrounding parts of County Limerick, although one was not entered. The offences included three burglaries and an attempted entry that caused criminal damage. At one home in Kyle, cash and jewellery were taken and the house was ransacked. At Toomaline, the late John O’Donoghue collapsed and died after discovering intruders at his home. The court accepted medical evidence that the stress of the situation precipitated his death, given his serious underlying heart disease. It said neither respondent intended or foresaw his death, and the Director accepted there was no suggestion they were responsible for manslaughter.
The court described the offending as a carefully planned burglary spree, noting the group’s assigned roles and the vehicle bought shortly beforehand and registered in a false name. It found the totality of the offending to be in the high range and said the events required an aggregate pre-mitigation sentence of at least ten years. It also identified relevant previous convictions as aggravating factors.
The court recognised significant mitigation, including valuable admissions, early guilty pleas, genuine remorse and, for David Casey, his youth. It reduced the ten-year starting figure to seven years for mitigation, then reduced the sentence by a further eight months in each case because the resentencing took place well into the sentences already being served.
The resulting six years and four months in each case was imposed for the O’Donoghue burglary. The court also imposed three years for the Kyle burglary, two years for the Portnard burglary and 12 months for the criminal damage, all concurrent. It held that use of a global headline sentence was not required and that the Circuit Court’s failure to use that approach was not, by itself, an error of principle.