‘Abide by the terms of your sentence,’ says judge
A JUDGE has hit out at criminals who do not abide by the terms of their suspended sentences.
However, despite his strong words, Judge Gerard O’Brien declined to activate the suspended portion of a sentence imposed on a convicted kidnapper who had failed to follow his own conditions.
In July 2014, Shane Green, then aged 23, and formerly of The Bungalow, Kilcully, Co. Cork, was sentenced to five years in prison for kidnapping and then launching a ‘horrific’ attack against his then girlfriend. The last two years of his sentence were suspended, and – with remission – he was released in August 2016.
Cork Circuit Criminal Court heard yesterday that Green, who had once been a successful hurler, had been ‘on the straight and narrow’ for a period of time. He had also engaged with the Probation Service, but has since lapsed, it was heard.
As well as missing a string of appointments with the Probation Service, he has since been charged with a recent offence and was yesterday in custody while he tried to raise money for bail.
The State was making a re-entry application for the suspended part of Green’s sentence to be lifted so he could be returned to prison.
Green’s barrister, Ray Boland, pleaded for the judge to give his client one last chance to engage with the Probation Service.
In response, Judge O’Brien said: ‘The amount of resources being put in the attempts to rehabilitate persons who have been given chances by various courts on suspended sentences is becoming increasingly alarming. And the fact that accused persons simply ignore the fact that the Sword of Damocles is hanging over them, and head off into the wild blue yonder after leaving prison and ignore what they promised to do when they were granted a suspended sentence in the first place, is making suspended sentences utterly meaningless.’
However, the judge agreed to adjourn the State’s re-entry application, although he said he was only doing so ‘very reluctantly’.
And he warned: ‘If he does not engage, he will go back into prison and he will serve the full term.’
‘Increasingly alarming’