The Court of Appeal has allowed an undue leniency application by the Director of Public Prosecutions and replaced a fully suspended sentence imposed on D. O’S. for child cruelty with a sentence requiring one year in custody.
The court quashed the two-year sentence imposed by the Circuit Criminal Court in Limerick on 5 June 2019. That sentence had been suspended in full for six years and ordered to run consecutively to a four-year sentence imposed in March 2017. The Court of Appeal instead imposed a two-year headline sentence, suspended one year subject to conditions, and ordered the remaining year to be served consecutively to the sentence D. O’S. was then serving. It also required probation supervision after release, compliance with the Probation Service’s requirements and recommendations, and cooperation with any treatment programmes it arranged.
D. O’S. had been convicted by a jury of one count of child cruelty under section 246 of the Children Act 2001. The charge concerned his eldest son, then aged 13, and conduct between 1 January 2015 and 30 June 2016 at addresses where the family had lived. The Court of Appeal’s account of the evidence included two assaults, neglect, and the children’s exposure to heroin use and drug dealing. The son testified that his father struck him in the stomach and face. The court also described evidence of inadequate accommodation, poor nutrition and untreated hearing difficulties. The child was living with his maternal grandmother and was doing well in her care.
The DPP argued that the sentencing judge had failed to give sufficient weight to the offending’s gravity, aggravating factors, the victim’s harm, punishment and deterrence, and D. O’S.’s previous convictions. The appeal court said the judge’s reasons deserved considerable weight and acknowledged the family circumstances and the child’s hope for a reunion. It nevertheless found that the judge had lost focus on the gravity of the conduct and had not adequately considered whether actual custody was needed for punishment or deterrence.
The court highlighted that the offence was committed while D. O’S. was on bail, his numerous previous convictions included assault convictions, and the offending involved serious neglect and exposing children to drug activity. It held that the wholly suspended sentence was unjustified and outside the accepted range. The Court of Appeal therefore resentenced him; it did not leave the original sentence in place.