The Court of Appeal has quashed a sentence of three years’ imprisonment, suspended for three years, imposed on Donal Lee for a burglary in Laytown, Co Meath. On a Director of Public Prosecutions appeal against undue leniency, the court set a five-year headline sentence and imposed three years’ imprisonment consecutive to the reactivated sentences from earlier convictions.
The judgment, delivered on 15 November 2021, concerned a burglary at a pharmacy on 1 December 2018. The court said Lee and another intruder entered through the roof late at night and took a safe containing about €2,800. Cologne bottles were also taken but broke during the departure and were left behind.
The court recounted evidence presented at sentencing: CCTV identifications of Lee and the other intruder, including footage showing Lee entering the pharmacy days before the burglary. The safe was later found near Lee’s home. The judgment said an alibi Lee initially gave in interview was undermined by enquiries.
Lee pleaded guilty on 20 November 2020, when the case was listed for trial. The Court of Appeal noted this was not an early plea. The burglary was committed during the suspension period of earlier sentences for burglary and attempted burglary. The Circuit Court had reactivated one year of each earlier sentence and suspended the entirety of the three-year sentence for the new offence.
The DPP argued the sentence failed to reflect the seriousness and aggravating features of the burglary, that too much credit had been given for mitigation, and that it did not provide deterrence. The DPP submitted that a headline sentence of five or six years was appropriate. Lee’s counsel argued that the three-year sentence was appropriate and that only two of the factors identified in an earlier burglary sentencing judgment applied.
The appeal court found the burglary involved planning and two participants, caused damage to the premises, and was committed during the suspension period for similar offences. It described Lee’s record—93 previous convictions, including 43 for burglary—as a major aggravating factor. The court said the sentencing judge had considered the mitigating material, including psychological and treatment information, but had given insufficient weight to the aggravating factors and general deterrence.
The court assessed the offence as within the middle range of seriousness and quashed the Circuit Court sentence. It said four years would otherwise be appropriate after considering the guilty plea and totality, but imposed three years in light of the fact that the respondent was being resentenced to a longer period of imprisonment on a Director’s appeal. The three-year term is consecutive to the reactivated sentences. The judgment does not state any further order about suspension of the new term.