No extra jail time for serial burglar
Criminal with 103 convictions wins appeal court case
A SERIAL burglar with 103 convictions who raided a house while a suspended sentence hung over his head won’t serve another day in jail because he deserves ‘a last chance’, a court has ruled.
Martin O’Brien, 31, was given a four-year suspended prison term for raiding an elderly man’s home – but within 20 months he had burgled again.
Despite this, the jail term was not activated and he was given a three-year sentence with two years suspended.
The DPP appealed on the grounds of undue leniency but the Court of Appeal yesterday gave him one ‘last chance’.
A SERIAL burglar with 103 convictions who raided a house while a suspended sentence hung over him will serve no extra jail time because he deserves a ‘last chance’, appeal judges have ruled.
Martin O’Brien, 31, was given a four-year suspended jail term in January 2015 for raiding an 85-year-old-man’s home in Co. Dublin in August 2013.
But within 20 months of walking free, he targeted another home where a widow lived alone, making off with a gold coin ‘of sentimental value’ and $500.
O’Brien pleaded guilty to burglary in Marlborough Road, Glenageary, Co. Dublin, at the home of Marian Shanley, widow of late High Court judge Mr Justice Peter Shanley. Ms Shanley chased the burglar from her home during the incident in on August 31, 2016.
Last February, O’Brien was given a three-year sentence with two years suspended. However, his four-year suspended term from the previous burglary was not activated – so, with remission, he has since been freed.
As revealed by the Irish Daily Mail last month, Director of Public Prosecutions Claire Loftus asked the Court of Appeal to review the criminal’s sentence because she felt it was ‘unduly lenient’.
That empowered appeal judges to send O’Brien back to prison if they saw fit. But three judges – including former attorney general Máire Whelan – yesterday declined to do this, saying O’Brien was entitled to benefit from a ‘last chance’ legal principle, even though his year-long term was ‘very lenient indeed’.
The court heard O’Brien, of Crosthwaite Park West, Dún Laoghaire, and previously of Coolevin, Ballybrack, both Co. Dublin, has 103 previous convictions, including six for burglary and two for assault causing harm. The court was told he once worked as a groundsman at Leopardstown Racecourse but developed a drug addiction and became a heroin user after he was let go seven years ago.
Presiding judge John Edwards, sitting with Ms Whelan and John Hedigan, ruled that sentencing judge Pauline Codd was right to accept O’Brien was ‘genuine in his resolve’ to get his life back on track.
Despite his ‘bad record and the fact that a previous chance had not been grasped’, Judge Codd ‘ought not to be criticised’ for the sentence she gave, which focused on the criminal’s ‘rehabilitation’, they found.
The court heard the 12-month term was intended to ensure O’Brien’s ‘continued progress towards rehabilitation would be incentivised’.
The judges found Judge Codd had been ‘persuaded of the genuineness of [O’Brien’s] commitment to changing his life’ and had correctly handed down the lenient sentence on a ‘lastchance basis’.
They concluded: ‘The sentence was undoubtedly lenient, very lenient indeed. But could it be said to be outside the norm as to represent a manifest error of principle? We think not.’
YESTERDAY we witnessed a situation where a man with 103 previous convictions had a suspended sentence upheld, even though he re-offended while that suspended term was in place. It was deemed appropriate that he serve no extra jail time whatsoever – that, indeed, in the words of the judge, he deserved ‘a last chance’.
On the same day, a convicted criminal who had brutally punched a young woman in the face, breaking her jaw, was permitted to walk free from court.
Putting all of this into a tragic context, meanwhile, was courageous Kathleen Chada, whose husband Sanjeev murdered their sons, Eoghan and Ruairí, in 2013. Calling for both a more acceptable level of minimum sentencing and for consecutive sentencing when it comes to violent crime, this bereaved mother obviously felt compelled to go public with this issue because she believes that the system does not work for victims.
She is right. As this newspaper’s ‘Call This Justice?’ campaign clearly illustrates, it’s time that our justice system protected the victims rather than the criminals.