The Court of Appeal has resentenced a man who appealed the severity of his sentence for a 2019 robbery, finding that the sentencing judge had not applied the totality principle when making the term consecutive to an earlier sentence.
The court quashed the original sentence and imposed the same four-year term, but suspended its final two years. The sentence remains consecutive to a five-year sentence previously imposed in the Central Criminal Court. The court said the additional suspension was needed to make the aggregate punishment proportionate.
The appeal concerned an offence on 9 November 2019. The judgment said the appellant grabbed at a woman’s shopping and personal bags as she walked to work in Dublin city centre. During a struggle, he punched her twice in the head. Gardaí at a nearby station saw the incident on CCTV and pursued him as he ran away with her handbag. He was caught about 250 metres from the scene, and the handbag and its contents were returned. The woman had bruising and a cut above her eye.
The appellant pleaded guilty. The sentencing judge set a six-year pre-mitigation sentence, then reduced it to four years and suspended the final year, citing the plea, remorse, personal circumstances and rehabilitation. The sentence was to run consecutively to a five-year term imposed for 14 sexual assault offences.
On appeal, counsel for the appellant argued that the combined sentence was crushing and that the sentencing judge had failed to account for the totality of the punishment. The Court of Appeal rejected the respondent’s submission that the judge’s reduction to four years showed that totality had been considered. It said the totality assessment should follow the setting of the post-mitigation sentence and the decision to impose consecutive terms. The sentencing remarks did not mention the principle or show that the judge had applied it.
The Court of Appeal said the combined punishment could be considered crushing in the circumstances. It therefore resentenced the appellant to four years’ imprisonment with the final 24 months suspended, on the same terms and conditions as the original suspension. The term remains consecutive to the earlier five-year sentence. The judgment addresses the sentence only; it does not overturn the robbery conviction.