Victor Akinlade loses appeal against five-year sentence

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Victor Akinlade has lost an appeal against the five-year sentence imposed for violent disorder after an incident involving a plain-clothes garda. The proceedings were reported on 8 May 2024.

At Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in May 2022, a jury unanimously convicted Akinlade of violent disorder, assault causing harm and producing a baseball bat during a dispute. Judge Patricia Ryan presided at the trial. Akinlade was sentenced to five years for violent disorder and four years each for assault causing harm and producing the bat.

The trial heard that on 28 May 2018, near Akinlade’s home in Ballyogan Avenue, Carrickmines, Dublin 18, Garda Jonathan Ryan pursued another man who had run into the property. Garda Ryan applied force to the front door, shattering a glass panel. The report said Akinlade then appeared with a metal baseball bat and struck the garda.

Akinlade maintained that he did not strike Garda Ryan and that the garda’s injuries were self-inflicted. He said he did not know the man was a garda. At trial, he submitted that he had been acting in defence of another person or his property.

At the Court of Appeal, his counsel Barry M Ward BL argued that mitigating factors had not been properly considered and that the sentence was excessive. He said Akinlade had no previous convictions and had perceived a plain-clothes person attacking his home.

Dismissing the appeal, Mr Justice George Birmingham said the sentence was significant, but the court was not persuaded that it fell outside the range available to the trial judge.