The Court of Criminal Appeal has ruled it was "legally improper" and "inappropriate" for a trial judge to have imposed a 15-year sentence on Linda Mulhall for manslaughter of her mother's boyfriend without having first considered probation and psychological reports on Mulhall.
In the absence of those reports, the three-judge appeal court said yesterday it could not decide whether the 15-year sentence was unduly severe and it adjourned for four weeks its decision on Mulhall's appeal against severity of sentence to allow it to receive and consider those reports.
The court stressed that Mr Justice Paul Carney had erred in law only on the issue of failing to consider the reports before passing the sentence.
It also noted the fact the reports were not available when Mulhall was sentenced was not due to any deliberate fault on her part.
In those circumstances, and given evidence of gardaí that Mulhall co-operated with them, was remorseful and was the victim of violence at the hands of the father of three of her children, the court said it believed it would not have been possible to have "full regard for the principles of sentencing" without the reports being available.
Linda Mulhall (33), a mother of four, was found guilty in October 2006 of the manslaughter of Farah Swaleh Noor on March 20th, 2005. Her sister Charlotte (27) is currently appealing a life sentence for the murder of Mr Noor during a row, following a night of drinking and drug-taking.
The trial was told Mr Noor (39) made highly inappropriate comments and a pass at Linda and got a grip on her before her mother tried to stop him. He then drew his finger across the mother's throat. The jury heard Linda thought he was going to kill her mother, at which point Charlotte picked up a Stanley blade and slashed his throat.
Linda then hit him with a hammer on the head "a good few times " before he was stabbed several times again by Charlotte. The two sisters then dragged the body into the bathroom and took turns dismembering him.
They and their mother then walked to the nearby Royal Canal where they disposed of the body parts with the exception of the head which they brought, with the knives used, to a park in Tallaght. The head was buried in a shallow hole.
Linda later removed the head from the park and took it to Brittas in Co Dublin and buried it again but it was never found.
Mr Noor, a Somalian who arrived in Ireland in 1996, was identified after someone recognised a T-shirt on the recovered torso.
Linda later voluntarily confessed her part in the crime to gardaí and was jailed in December 2006 for 15 years after being found guilty of manslaughter. Last December, the court reserved judgment on her appeal against severity of sentence.
Yesterday, Ms Justice Fidelma Macken, presiding, and sitting with Mr Justice Roderick Murphy and Mr Justice Eamon de Valera, said the "grim details" of the killing formed the basis of the grounds of appeal against severity of sentence.
The judge rejected arguments for Mulhall that it was a fundamental principle in law that sentencing should be adjourned pending the availability of probation and psychological or psychiatric reports. That right must at all times depend on the case and on its particular features, Ms Justice Macken said.
However, there were particular cases where the crime was of such a nature that the background, characteristics, trait or personal disposition must be considered, she said. In such cases, and this case was one, it would be "both inappropriate and legally improper" to proceed with sentencing without the relevant reports being available.
In this case, sentencing ought to have proceeded "only upon receipt of the reports which had been directed to be made available", the judge ruled.