The Court of Appeal has dismissed Ryan Fitzpatrick’s appeal against the severity of a three-year-and-nine-month prison sentence for corruption, with a count of perverting the course of justice taken into consideration.
Fitzpatrick pleaded guilty on 21 March 2024 to paying a civilian Garda employee for information from the Garda PULSE system and to perverting the course of justice. The Circuit Criminal Court sentenced him on 29 April 2024. It set a six-year headline sentence, reduced it to four years for mitigation and then deducted three months for time served, including custody in Spain while a European Arrest Warrant was being executed.
The appeal argued that the sentencing judge failed to account for a general principle that suppliers of unauthorised information should be sentenced more heavily than recipients, gave insufficient weight to Fitzpatrick’s personal circumstances and imposed an unduly severe sentence.
The Court of Appeal rejected the claimed principle. It said culpability depends on each person’s role and the circumstances of their offending. The court also found the evidence did not support treating Fitzpatrick as equally or less culpable than the Garda employee. It cited differences in their cases, including her signed guilty plea, admissions and cooperation, and her lack of previous convictions. Fitzpatrick, the court said, had previous convictions, had destroyed evidence, had left Ireland while prosecution directions were pending, and offended while on bail and during a suspended sentence.
The judges described the corruption as sustained and planned. WhatsApp screenshots showed requests for information about Fitzpatrick, his brother and other named people. Messages indicated that at least €500 was to be paid, though the court said there was no evidence at the sentencing hearing of what was actually paid or when. The court said the disclosures undermined Garda crime detection and law enforcement and could affect public confidence.
The appeal court did identify an error in the sentencing judge’s suggestion that material on Fitzpatrick’s phone could have revealed further lines of inquiry: it said that claim had no factual basis. However, it concluded that this did not make the sentence wrong. It also said the trial judge could reasonably infer that the destruction of the phone reflected consciousness of guilt or another motive to avoid the evidence, although it was not known whether the phone’s contents were incriminating.
The court rejected the remaining challenge to the mitigation discount, finding that the one-third reduction and additional credit for time served were within the sentencing judge’s discretion. It found no significant error in the overall approach or sentence and dismissed the appeal.