The number of victims of Ivan Payne, their age and the damage inflicted on them was not taken into account when a judge suspended four years of a six-year sentence imposed on the Dublin priest for sex offences, the DPP argued before the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday.
He argued that the sentence imposed by the former Judge Cyril Kelly at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in June 1998 was too lenient. However, lawyers for the priest submitted the sentence was appropriate in all the circumstances. The three-judge court reserved judgment on the appeal.
In sentencing Payne, Judge Kelly, who later became a High Court judge and resigned last week in the controversy over the Sheedy affair, imposed a six-year sentence on the priest and ordered that he serve two years in prison.
The judge suspended the final four years on condition that Payne enter the Granada Institute in England or some similar centre for treatment. Payne entered a bond to go for treatment after two years' imprisonment and was given eight terms of six years, two of five years and three of four years on 13 charges of indecent assault on nine boys between 1968 and 1987. All the sentences were to run concurrently.
Payne, with an address care of the Dublin Archdiocese, pleaded guilty on April 27th, 1998, to the 13 sample charges. His victims were aged from about 11 to 14.
When imposing sentence, Judge Kelly said Payne had pleaded guilty and his plea had avoided the distress it would have caused to his victims to give evidence at a trial. He said the priest was disgraced in the full glare of publicity and had already paid a price. He had no previous convictions and would be "for ever more a pariah within the community".
In the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday Mr Patrick McCarthy SC, for the DPP, submitted that, having regard to all the facts, the sentence was too lenient and a departure from what had been the norm. The DPP argued the trial judge did not have sufficient regard to the number and age of Payne's victims. It was also submitted that Payne had offended after his "unmasking" to his superiors and the damage to the injured parties had not been sufficiently taken into account.
Mr Michael McDowell SC, for Payne, said the sentence was quite appropriate in all the circumstances and was a considered judgment measured to the accused. It should not be interfered with unless the appeal court regarded it as manifestly wrong. It was a sentence within normal parameters for a judge imposing a sentence in similar circumstances.
Asked about the church's present attitude to Payne, Mr McDowell said he had never been isolated or distanced by the church authorities and had been visited in prison by a bishop. Payne did not expect to be allowed to return to the public ministry of the church.
Asked by Mr Justice Barr, who sat with Mr Justice Barron, presiding, and Mr Justice O'Sullivan whether the church would offer Payne some worthwhile activity which would not bring him in contact with the public, young or old, Mr McDowell said the church would not abandon him or leave him to "wander the streets".
In such cases, the church's approach was to appoint one person to approach the victims and another to deal and maintain contact with the perpetrator.