A man described as a hopeless drug addict who was jailed for five years for carrying out a number of robberies "to feed his habit" had his sentence increased to eight years by the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday.
The court upheld the DPP's appeal against a total term of five years' imprisonment imposed on Peter Doyle, Clogher Road, Crumlin, Dublin, by Judge Desmond Hogan at the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on May 13th, 2004. Doyle had been convicted of three "clusters" of charges, which included counts of robbery, burglary and unlawful seizure of a motor vehicle.
Mr Justice Kearns, giving the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal, said it was important to emphasise that not only was any one of the clusters of offences extremely serious in themselves, two of the three were committed while the accused was on bail. In the view of the CCA, the sentence imposed by the trial judge could not possibly be correct and there had been a clear error of principle.