Is Flanagan ready to toughen law on serial burglars?

JUSTICE Minister Charlie Flanagan has indicated he may change laws that have allowed serial burglars to walk free from court with suspended sentences.

The Mail revealed last month that Director of Public Prosecutions Claire Loftus was taking appeals against a number of ‘unduly lenient’ sentences given to repeat burglars with multiple previous convictions in the past year.

Ms Loftus has won two of those appeals – including one involving two burglars with 58 previous convictions between them who raided the home of a vulnerable pensioner, causing him to die ‘of shock’ on the spot, and got just three-and-a-half years in jail.

When the Mail asked the Department of Justice if it will consider setting minimum sentences for serial burglars, it said Minister Flanagan was ‘not ruling out further [law reform] measures in the future where such measures can be impactful’.

Convicted burglars are regularly set free on bail or suspended sentences, such as Stuart Whelan, 28, of Keeper Road, Drimnagh, Dublin, who had 90 previous convictions when he helped tie up two French students, kicking and stabbing one of them, during a burglary in December 2014.

Whelan and an accomplice fled with a laptop, a camera, and two mobile phones.

Judge Mary Ellen Ring praised Whelan ‘for turning his life around’ and suspended a five-year sentence in full for three years.

In many cases, those handed suspended sentences go on to commit further crimes. Between 2011 and 2015, more than 8,000 burglaries were carried out by offenders who were out on bail.

In the coming weeks, Court of Appeal judges are expected to issue new guidelines for judges sentencing repeat burglars who scare or attack vulnerable householders in the light of a number of recent sentence reviews by the appeal court.

In the US, all burglars can expect to be jailed for no less than 12 months, and for as long as 25 years depending on the level of violence, or intended violence, involved.

Here, burglary is punishable by up to 14 years in prison on conviction at Circuit Court level – or up to life for aggravated burglary. But with no concrete ‘minimum sentencing’ guidelines, trial judges have a wide discretion in each case – including the option to suspend any sentence in full.

When asked if the Government has plans to introduce US-style minimum sentencing, the department initially gave us a robust defence of the system. And a spokesman pointed to recent measures such as the Criminal Justice (Burglary of Dwellings) Act 2015 – which was heavily criticised by lawyers and opposition politicians when it was drawn up.

Although that law provides for consecutive prison sentences for repeat domestic burglaries committed within a specified period, it means that burglars dealt with in the District Court cannot be jailed for any longer than two years.

When pressed further on how the laws could be improved, a spokesman said: ‘Minister Flanagan keeps matters pertaining to criminal law under review and in so doing, he is informed by the operational assessments of An Garda Síochána, expert reports from bodies such as the Garda Inspectorate and the Law Reform Commission and crime trends.

‘Legislative reforms were introduced relatively recently [in 2015] and the minister is not ruling out further measures in the future where such measures can be impactful.’

The Irish Daily Mail has consistently highlighted the issue of a lack of consistency in sentencing in our judicial system.