Appeal court jails man who beat ex-partner
Kelly breached a safety order
A MAN who was given a suspended sentence for brutally beating his expartner outside their daughter’s creche has been jailed following an appeal by prosecutors.
Matthew Kelly, who had his daughter in his arms, put her down and punched his expartner in the mouth with a closed fist.
He then repeatedly punched her to the head and body after she had fallen to the ground.
President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice George Birmingham agreed that a suspended sentence handed down to Matthew Kelly by the Circuit Court was ‘unduly lenient’.
He said the court regarded it as a very serious offence given the nature and location of the assault. It was committed within the presence of the school community, and in the presence of his own child. Giving judgment in the three-judge court, Judge Birmingham said a confrontation arose about the collection of their daughter from school.
In her victim impact report, the woman said she was kicked on the ground in front of her daughter. In the aftermath, Kelly went to his local Garda station and admitted what he did.
Judge Birmingham said it was important to note that the woman had obtained a safety order from the District Court, which was in force at the time of the assault.
Kelly, 26, with an address at Clara House, Main Street, Roundwood, Co. Wicklow, pleaded guilty to assault in Roundwood on November 17, 2017. The Director of Public Prosecutions successfully sought a review of Kelly’s suspended sentence on the grounds that it was unduly lenient. The Court of Appeal agreed and accordingly jailed him for 12 months.
He was originally given a suspended two-and-a-half-year sentence by Judge Michael O’Shea at Bray Circuit Criminal Court in July 2018. Judge O’Shea described the attack as ‘cowardly, vicious and violent’ and noted that Kelly had no previous convictions and a good work record. The Circuit Court heard that he was suffering from depression and anxiety and had attended counselling regularly.
Before the Court of Appeal, counsel for the DPP, Eoghan Cole BL, submitted that the sentencing judge erred in suspending the sentence in its entirety.
He said the judge attached too much weight to Kelly’s mitigating factors, adding that ‘personal circumstances only travel so far’. He said the judge didn’t attach any weight to the need for deterrence, particularly where a safety order had been breached.
He said the injured party was entitled to expect the safety she had obtained from the courts and the fact Kelly breached a safety order moved the case into a different category.
In the Court of Appeal’s view, the fact that such a serious assault was committed against someone who had invoked the protection of the courts by seeking and obtaining a safety order moved the case into a different category. Judge Birmingham, who sat with Judge Marie Baker and Judge Patrick McCarthy, quashed Kelly’s sentence and imposed a new two-and-a-halfyear term with all but the final 12 months suspended.