A man who stabbed a taxi driver and left him to die on a country road has been given an extra two years in prison after a finding that his original six-year jail term was too lenient.
Joseph Hillen (25), with an address at Glendasha Road, Forkhill, Co Armagh, had admitted killing Martin Mulligan (53) in a rural area near Dundalk, Co Louth in the early hours of September 28th, 2015, but denied it was murder.
The trial heard that Hillen initially denied all knowledge of Mr Mulligan’s death, but ahead of his trial he made a voluntary statement in which he admitted stabbing the taxi driver following an altercation on the side of the road.
Hillen was found guilty of manslaughter by a Central Criminal Court jury and was sentenced to seven years imprisonment with the final year suspended by Ms Justice Eileen Creedon on January 28th, 2019.
Passing sentence, Ms Justice Creedon said the verdict suggested the jury accepted Hillen believed he was acting in self-defence.
The Court of Appeal found Hillen’s sentence to be “unduly lenient” on Tuesday, on foot of an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions, and he was accordingly resentenced to nine years imprisonment with the final year suspended.
President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice George Birmingham said it was “a desperately serious offence” and the victim was treated with “shocking callousness”.
Mr Justice Birmingham said gardaí received information about a Toyota Avensis spinning its tyres on Park Street, Dundalk, on the night of the crime. Hillen was the driver.
The car was pursued but gardaí had to discontinue the pursuit due to the danger being posed to the public.
Mr Justice Birmingham said Hillen was interviewed on a number of occasions between May 23rd and 25th, 2016 and did not make any admissions to killing Mr Mulligan. When he was asked about the presence of his blood at the scene, Hillen claimed gardaí must have put it there.
Some two months prior to the trial, Hillen asked the gardaí to visit him in prison to provide “what purported to be” an account of what occurred in the build-up to the killing, the judge said.
Hillen said he believed the deceased was dumping rubbish on his friend’s land and, on seeing this, gave chase. There was nothing in the case to suggest Mr Mulligan was dumping any rubbish, the court heard.
According to Hillen’s voluntary statement, the deceased stopped suddenly and a struggle ensued on the roadside. He said the deceased had in his possession a long, stainless steel kitchen knife.
Hillen described “flipping” the knife from the deceased’s hand, receiving punches to his head and then, as he described it, “jabbing out” twice with the knife while he was underneath.
Mr Justice Birmingham said two stab wounds, each incredibly serious, were inflicted. The wound to the abdomen was 22.5cm deep and the second wound, described as a “through and through” wound, pierced right through the entire thigh of the deceased.
He said the court did not ignore the fact that the State Pathologist was prepared to accept that the injuries inflicted by Hillen could be explained in the manner described by him to gardaí.
Mr Justice Birmingham said Mr Mulligan’s car was removed from the scene by Hillen’s companion whose name cannot be published as he is yet to be prosecuted, the court heard, and the keys were thrown into a nearby field.
Mr Mulligan was left seriously injured to die alone on a remote country road, without any prospect of being able to get away and summon help, the judge said.
Mr Justice Birmingham said an unusual aspect of the case was the withdrawal of a number of character references submitted on Hillen’s behalf at the sentence hearing.
The court was told that the references were provided by members of Hillen’s family to his lawyers at a time when he was in custody. Mr Justice Birmingham said the court would not attach any great significance to the matter, but it did not “inspire confidence”.
Counsel for the DPP, Patrick Treacy SC, submitted some manslaughters were “close to being indistinguishable from murder”.
In those cases, he said sentences of life imprisonment have been imposed and the DPP was submitting this was a “worst case” scenario. Failing that submission, he said it was a “high culpability case”.
Mr Treacy said the sentence was unduly lenient due to the particular devastation caused to the Mulligan family; the build-up to the killing; the aftermath; the use of the knife; the “brutality”; Hillen’s convictions for dangerous driving while on bail for the killing; his previous convictions and his “lack of honesty”.
Counsel for Hillen, Brendan Grehan SC, said it was “baseless” for the DPP to contend this manslaughter ought to fall within the most extreme category or at the higher level.
Mr Grehan said the trial judge had to respect the verdict of the jury, in circumstances where Hillen had claimed “excessive self-defence”. He said the DPP was “dissatisfied” with the fact the jury accepted Hillen’s narrative and had come to the Court of Appeal to complain about the sentence.
Mr Justice Birmingham, who sat with Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy and Ms Justice Aileen Donnelly, said the court did not agree with the DPP that the offence fell within the worst category of manslaughter cases but it did fall within the high culpability category.
The court fixed 12 years as the appropriate headline sentence which was reduced to nine giving “full value” to the mitigating factors.
The court suspended the final year in recognition of the “disappointment factor” of having a sentence extended on foot of a DPP appeal.
Had a sentence of 10 years imprisonment been imposed originally, it was unlikely the Court of Appeal would have intervened on grounds of severity, Mr Justice Birmingham said.
He said Hillen was the father of two young children. He had 15 previous convictions including a number of road traffic matters “at the more serious end” but none were for crimes of violence.
At the time of the killing, Hillen was carrying out community service, and was on bail for the killing when he committed two dangerous driving offences.