A SUPREME COURT judge who presided over Wednesday's appeal hearing in which a one year sentence imposed on solicitor Conor Killeen was reduced to six weeks' jail, has moved to dispel, "any possible air of mystery about its listing".
Killeen was sentenced originally after pleading guilty to five counts on an indictment preferred against him alleging that he was an accessory after the fact to certain acts of forgery perpetrated by Elio Malocco, another solicitor now serving five years for fraud involving monies due to the Irish Press.
Mr justice O'Flaherty, who sat as senior judge with Mr Justice Moriarty and Ms Justice Laffoy, said in a statement yesterday that Killeen's bail application had been heard before the Court of Criminal Appeal on July 29th. "The substantive appeal would have been heard on that date if the transcript of the evidence given at his trial was available," the statement added. "The court was told that the transcript would be available in a few weeks."
Referring to a report in yesterday's Irish Times, Mr Justice O'Flaherty stated: "The Court of Criminal Appeal fixed the 28th August for the hearing and not only because it suited the judges' - it was a date that suited everyone involved and gave time for the transcript to become available and to be studied in advance of the hearing."
The Legal Diary of July 31st, August 14th and August 28th had carried the appeal hearing date. "In so far as your report carries the implication that because there were no reporters in court this was in some way the fault of the legal system, I think it is clear that it is not so," the statement went on.
"It will be clear from a reading of the judgment that there was no question of Mr Killeen admitting to helping his partner to defraud the Irish Press newspaper group of over £60,000. The whole point of being an accessory after the tact is the assistance (by omission in this case) that the principal offender is afforded after the main offence has been completed.
"Further, if a reporter had been present I beg leave to doubt that The Irish Times would have allowed itself the editorial comment, put, I know, in indirect speech:
`Yesterday's decision by the Court of Criminal Appeal to suspend 10 months of the 12 month sentence imposed on the solicitor, Conor Killeen, for fraud offences coincides ironically with the publication of the report [Law Reform Commission report on sentencing policy]. Some will see Killeen as the hapless victim of a more clever fraudster, his former partner, Elio Malocco. Others will contrast this leniency with the custodial sentences sometimes imposed upon defendants whose life circumstances are much less advantaged than those of solicitors.'
"The judgment speaks for itself as to how justice could best be served in all the circumstances of this particular appeal.
"Our duty, as judges, as is well known, is to render justice without fear or favour, affection or ill will towards anyone.
"I am further saddened by other intemperate comments in the course of the editorial wherein reference to erratic and inconsistent sentencing provoking public dismay' is made in general terms - that might be worthy of someone courting cheap popularity but falls well below the standards The Irish Times generally sets itself."
Mr Justice O'Flaherty's statement added: "Perhaps an answer is for newspapers and others to give more time to providing a report of a wider section of cases and not just those that are likely to be sensational or, at least, to provide an analysis based on the totality of the work of any particular court."