The Court of Appeal has refused an application by John Adams under section 2 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1993 to revisit sentences imposed for offences against three minors in the Dundalk area.
Adams argued that submissions made by the Irish Government before the European Court of Human Rights in Lynch & Whelan v Ireland showed that preventive detention formed no part of Irish law. He said this amounted to a “newly discovered fact” for the purposes of the 1993 Act. He also relied on wording in a 2004 sentence appeal judgment referring to the possibility of a risk of reoffending.
The Court of Appeal rejected that interpretation of the 2004 judgment, saying it could not reasonably be read as providing for preventive detention. It also held that a later clarification or change in the law could not be a newly discovered fact under section 2. Citing earlier Court of Criminal Appeal decisions, the court said the procedure concerns evidential or factual material that could have been adduced at trial and might show that a conviction was a miscarriage of justice. It described the application as manifestly unfounded and refused it.
The application concerned sentences imposed by Carney J in July 2003, after Adams pleaded guilty to four counts of unlawful carnal knowledge and two counts of sexual assault. The judgment says he received discretionary life sentences on the unlawful carnal knowledge counts and four years’ imprisonment on the sexual assault counts. A 2004 appeal against sentence was dismissed.
In refusing the present application, the Court of Appeal also noted that the original sentences had been heavily influenced by the gravity of the offending and the facts before the sentencing judge, including photographs connected with the offences. It referred to the 2004 appeal court’s observations about Adams’s attitude and lack of expressed remorse. The court said there were ample grounds to justify the maximum sentence prescribed by law. The judgment does not alter those sentences.