It was always likely that the three young men convicted of involvement in the death of Brian Murphy would go to jail, writes Carol Coulter, Legal Affairs Correspondent
Legal experts agree that the sentences delivered by Judge Michael White yesterday fell well within the ball-park of the norm for such offences.
In spelling out the principles on which the sentences were based, Judge Michael White touched on two issues that have dominated public comment on this case, which has aroused almost unprecedented public interest.
He said that in handing down sentence the court must consider the impact on the accused of widespread publicity arising from trial and conviction. He also said that an accused person should not be penalised as a result of their background.
The four original accused, reduced to three by the acquittal of Andrew Frame, certainly received more publicity than people accused of similar offences because of their background. There were a number of reasons for this, not least the fact that 60 per cent of all second-level students go on to third level, and many of their parents must have experienced a frisson of recognition of the events leading up to the fatal attack.
A second factor is that the case took place in the shadow of the aftermath of the Philip Sheedy affair, where a young man from a similar background was released from prison early in circumstances giving rise to the suspicion that he had received favourable treatment because of his background.
Judge White stressed that this consideration should, and would, play no role in his treatment of the accused, and there was no suggestion from anyone that it did. He also said he was taking account of the extra burden the publicity imposed upon the accused.
However, among some close to the case there seemed to be a view that the media somehow contributed to the outcome of the trial.
There is nothing in the experience of sentencing in similar cases to bear this out.
There are no statistics for sentences for different offences in this State. However, the leading expert in sentencing, Prof Tom O'Malley of NUI Galway, said that a four-year sentence for manslaughter was well within the norm for this offence.
The only comparable figures for sentences for manslaughter are in England and Wales, where it is defined in a similar manner to here, and where some hundreds of people are sentenced for this crime every year.
According to Dr Ian O'Donnell of the Institute of Criminology in UCD, in the last year for which figures were available (2002), some 5 per cent of those convicted of manslaughter did not receive a custodial sentence. Some 8 per cent of those convicted received a life sentence.
The vast majority, therefore, fell in between, and of these 75 per cent received custodial sentences of four years or more. The average sentence handed down for manslaughter in that jurisdiction was 61 months, just over five years. In this context, the sentence handed down to Dermot Laide was on the light side of average.
There are other questions surrounding his conviction, not least the fact, alluded to by the judge and by the Laide family, that those who struck the fatal blows or blow never came before the courts. Their sense of injustice at the fact that he alone has been convicted of manslaughter is understandable.
But the most fundamental principle of sentencing is that it must follow the verdict, and that verdict was delivered by the jury after hearing the evidence. There may be an appeal which will seek to question what evidence was laid before the jurors, and other aspects of the conduct of the trial, but once the verdicts were delivered the judge had to operate within those parameters. He spelled out what these were in his preliminary remarks.
Prof O'Malley also told The Irish Times that in other jurisdictions sentencing often follows from the amount of violence the accused intended to inflict on the victim.
In sentencing Laide, Judge White referred to "two punches of very considerable force", and said he was "satisfied his actions contributed to the escalation of the incident, and to Mr Murphy becoming surrounded and defenceless".
Both Laide and Mackey were sentenced to two years each for violent disorder (running concurrently in Laide's case). While non-custodial sentences are sometimes handed down in cases involving violent disorder, the maximum sentence is 10 years. A lighter sentence follows a guilty plea, but all three fought the charge.
Prof O'Malley said that two years may be slightly above average for such an offence, but in the absence of statistics this can only be an impression.
There are statistics in England and Wales for sentences for the offence of violent disorder, according to Dr O'Donnell. About one in five receives non-custodial sentences there, though this varies, depending on whether or not the offender is young. Among the 80 per cent who do go to jail, the average sentence is 18 months, he said.
Judge White described Mackey's demeanour during the incident as that "of a person out to cause trouble".
The third accused, Desmond Ryan, who had hit the victim on the head as he was trying to get up, received a lesser sentence of nine months, largely because his behaviour included his attempt to help Brian Murphy when he realised he was badly hurt.
There may be appeals against severity of sentence, but the men's lawyers will have to show the sanctions contravened existing sentencing principles.