Manslaughter sentence reduced to eight years

A Dublin man jailed for 14 years for the manslaughter of a young electronics engineer has had his sentence reduced to eight years by the Court of Criminal Appeal. The decision stressed the fact that sentences must take into account the personal circumstances of each convicted person.

In quashing the original sentence imposed on Stephen Kelly for the manslaughter of Jonathan Guy, the three judge appeal court said the trial judge had erred in law in effectively setting, in cases where death or serious injury was due to the use of knives, a 20 year minimum sentence.

In Kelly's case, the trial judge had said, after taking into account Kelly's personal circumstances, he would impose a 14 year term.

In deciding that eight years was an appropriate sentence, Mr Justice Hardiman, giving the court's decision granting Kelly's appeal, said the court regarded this killing as in the upper part of the middle range of gravity of manslaughter cases.

It involved the death of a very promising young man described by his mother as a "kind, loyal, caring, loving son and loving friend".

In Kelly's favour was that he was 20 years old at the time, had offered a plea of guilty to manslaughter, had no previous convictions, had expressed remorse, was a model prisoner and had been in constant employment at the time of the offence.

It had also not been established that Kelly set out that night carrying a knife but had come into possession of a knife in circumstances where people were "on edge".

At his trial, Kelly (23), of Westpark, Artane, Dublin, had denied the murder of Mr Guy, Belcamp Crescent, on March 11th, 2001. Mr Guy died in hospital several days after he suffered a stab wound to the chest during an incident near his home.

At the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday, Mr Justice Hardiman said the exercise in sentencing in Kelly's case was inconsistent with what the Supreme Court had said regarding sentencing policy. The Supreme Court required that the trial court look first at the range of penalties applicable to an offence, decide where the particular case lay on that range and then look at what mitigating circumstances existed.

In this case, the trial judge had clearly said the minimum sentence for a type of offence involving a death caused by a knife or other sharp instrument was 20 years.

This approach, while conspicuous for its straightforwardness and clarity and based on the very laudable motive of deterring such offences, was wrong in principle and was a departure from the established principles of sentencing.

Mr Justice Hardiman referred to statistics on some sentences imposed in the Central Criminal Court in various manslaughter cases. Of a list of 50 cases, 13 resulted in sentences of more than 10 years and 37 under 10 years; 24 sentences were under five years and six sentences were totally suspended. The highest sentence was 17 years. Of 16 cases involving pleas to manslaughter, 14 years (Kelly's case) was the longest sentence imposed.