Philip Sheedy yesterday won his appeal against a four-year sentence imposed for dangerous driving causing the death of a woman in Tallaght, Co Dublin. He is expected to be freed early next year when he will have served two years in jail.
In a reserved judgment, the three-judge Court of Criminal Appeal decided that Judge Joseph Mathews, the trial judge in Sheedy's case, intended that Sheedy would serve 24 months in custody and that this intention was not wrong. However, it found the judge had erred in how he structured the sentence.
The court varied the four-year sentence imposed on Sheedy, of Newpark, Leixlip, Co Kildare, to one of three years. After allowance is made for remission, Sheedy will serve a 24-month term.
Sheedy, who made an early plea of guilty and who has no previous convictions, has already served some 20 months in jail.
The case was at the centre of a controversy earlier this year which led to the resignations of a Supreme Court judge, Mr Justice Hugh O'Flaherty, and Mr Justice Cyril Kelly, of the High Court.
The four-year sentence was imposed by Judge Mathews at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in October 1997 arising from an accident at Glenview roundabout, Tallaght, when a car driven by Sheedy collided with a car driven by Mrs Anne Ryan, of Old Bawn, Tallaght.
Mrs Ryan died following the accident, and her husband, John, their two children and another child, who were all travelling in the car, were injured.
Sheedy's appeal against sentence was heard last Monday. Mr Patrick MacEntee SC said his client appeared to have been driving at a very high speed at the time of the accident and to have lost control of the car. Evidence established he had had the equivalent of 3 1/2 or four pints of beer.
Delivering the judgment yesterday Mrs Justice Denham, who sat with Mr Justice Geoghegan and Ms Justice McGuinness, referred to several aggravating and mitigating factors in the case.
Among the mitigating factors were that Sheedy suffered greatly from remorse. There was no doubt from the evidence before the court that he had deep feelings of remorse which caused him to suffer, the judge said. It was clear this remorse was genuine. He had apologised unreservedly to the Ryan family.
He would be affected into the future by the event, the convictions and the sentences. His remorse would remain with him. On a personal level, his imprisonment had had an effect, as it did on every person.
The Court of Criminal Appeal also had before it the victim impact evidence given by Mr Ryan. This detailed the effect of the dangerous driving and the death of his wife on himself and his two young children left without their mother. He had spoken of the children crying at night for their mother "and the other things people do not see".
Mrs Justice Denham said the trial judge intended that Sheedy would serve 24 months in prison which, the court was informed, was equivalent, in the circumstances now pertaining, to a three-year sentence.
It was clear the trial judge had considered the relevant factors in the case and had balanced conflicting interests, including that of the DPP and the public's interest in offences being prosecuted to a just conclusion.
The trial judge also took into account the interests of the victim, her family and of Sheedy himself.
Although Judge Mathews did not err in his intent that Sheedy would serve 24 months, Mrs Justice Denham said he did err in the particular structure he established for review of the sentence. The court found he should not have imposed sentence under the review date formula.