The Court of Appeal has varied Frank Ryan’s sentence for eight offences, directing that he receive full credit for time spent in custody on remand solely in respect of those offences.
In an ex tempore judgment delivered on 28 July 2020, Mr Justice McCarthy said the relevant remand period was understood to run from 4 December 2016 to 3 July 2017. The appeal concerned the severity of sentence imposed by the Circuit Criminal Court in December 2017.
Ryan had pleaded guilty to eight counts, including burglary, two robberies and attempted robbery. The offences included a November 2016 burglary at the storeroom of the Black Sheep Bar in Tipperary, and December 2016 incidents at Gerry’s Newsagents, Ladbrokes and Patty’s flower shop in Tipperary. The indictment also included possession of cannabis and two knife possession offences. Those latter four counts were taken into consideration at sentencing.
The Circuit Criminal Court imposed three years for one robbery and one year for burglary, to run concurrently. It imposed two years for attempted robbery and two years for the second robbery, consecutively. The resulting sentence was seven years, with the final year suspended for two years on terms.
At the time, Ryan was serving two consecutive sentences totalling nine months, imposed in October 2017 for assaults committed in prison while he was on remand in the present case. The Court of Appeal noted that the sentencing judge had not been given the full information about the basis on which Ryan was in custody. The only reference in the sentencing submissions was that he was serving a sentence in Cork and, with remission, was expected to be released on 1 May 2018.
The appeal argued that the judge should have made the new sentences concurrent with the sentences Ryan was then serving, or backdated them at least in part. The Court of Appeal said the judge was entitled to refuse backdating on the information available and could have made the sentences consecutive to the earlier sentences. It also said both the prosecution and defence counsel had responsibility for ensuring relevant custody information was before the sentencing court.
The appeal succeeded to the limited extent that the Court of Appeal varied the sentence to give full credit for the period Ryan was remanded solely on the offences now before the court. The judgment does not specify a revised release date or otherwise detail how the credit affects the sentence in practice.