The Court of Appeal has increased the custodial term imposed on Craig McManus after finding that the sentences for two heroin offences were unduly lenient in part.
The court quashed the sentences imposed by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court and resentenced McManus. For the first offence, it imposed six years’ imprisonment, with the final two years suspended for 18 months after release on the same conditions set by the Circuit Court. It left the one-year sentence for the second offence in place, but ordered it to run consecutively, starting when the first sentence lawfully ends.
The appeal was brought by the Director of Public Prosecutions under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993, which permits review of a sentence alleged to be unduly lenient. The Court of Appeal said the six-year headline sentence for the first offence was lenient but within the sentencing judge’s discretion. However, it found that further reducing the term to four years and suspending its final 18 months created an unduly lenient effective custodial term of two and a half years.
The first offence involved diamorphine valued at €101,537, found among the toys of McManus’s four-year-old sister and in an air vent at his residence. The court said he admitted possession in a garda notebook, explaining that he had a €1,300 drugs debt, and pleaded guilty at an early stage.
The second offence involved diamorphine valued at €8,225.40. About five months after the first offence, gardaí saw McManus near his residence. He ran into a driveway and discarded a bag containing weighing scales and diamorphine into a skip; he also threw plastic bags towards a nearby house. Gardaí recovered the items. He made full admissions and pleaded guilty at an early stage.
The Court of Appeal said both offences involved large quantities of heroin and showed persistent commercial dealing. It held that, given the second offence was committed only five months after the first, the decision to make its sentence concurrent was an error of principle; no exceptional circumstances justified that approach.
The sentencing judge had cited McManus’s guilty pleas, cooperation, age, drug addiction and debts, threats to him and his mother, testimonials and efforts at rehabilitation. The appeal court acknowledged those mitigating factors, as well as the sentencing judge’s assessment that his risk of reoffending was moderate. It said it imposed lower sentences than it would have at first instance because the increased custodial term came about eight months after the original sentencing.