A drunken teenager who set fire to his friend and laughed as he screamed had his 11-year sentence cut by two years yesterday.
The Court of Criminal Appeal reduced the sentence imposed on Blaine O'Mahony (19), of Swan Grove, in Rathmines, Dublin. He was sentenced last October by Judge Frank O'Donnell to 11 years with one year suspended for two assaults and a robbery in 2003 and 2004.
Yesterday, Ms Justice Fidelma Macken, presiding at the three-judge appeal court, said the court would not change the existing sentences for one of the assaults and for the robbery.
However, the judge said that the trial judge should have had regard to the element of rehabilitation in relation to the nine-year sentence imposed for the assault on the victim, having regard to O'Mahony's age.
She said the court would reduce the nine-year sentence to seven years.
The judge also said that O'Mahony was just 17 when he committed the assaults.