DPP v Healy

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Mr. Justice Mahon
• Judgment Date: 27 June 2017
• Neutral Citation: [2017] IECA 194
• Docket Number: Record No. 83/2016
• Court: Court of Appeal (Ireland)
• Date: 27 June 2017

[2017] IECA 194

THE COURT OF APPEAL

Mahon J.

Birmingham J.

Mahon J.

Hedigan J.

Record No. 83/2016

BETWEEN/

THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS

RESPONDENT

- AND -

SHARON HEALY

APPELLANT

Sentencing – Careless driving causing death – Disqualification order – Appellant seeking to appeal against disqualification order – Whether sentencing judge failed to have due regard to the mitigating factors

Facts: The appellant, Ms Healy, pleaded guilty on the 12th November 2015 at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to one count of careless driving causing death contrary to s. 52 of the Road Traffic Act 1961. She was sentenced on the 25th February 2016 to twelve months imprisonment, with the entire sentence suspended for a period of twelve months on certain conditions. She was also disqualified from driving for a period of ten years from the 1st March 2016. The appellant appealed to the Court of Appeal against the imposition of the ten year disqualification order contending that the sentencing judge erred as follows: (i) The disqualification imposed was out of line with those imposed by the courts for comparable offences of careless driving causing death under s. 52 of the 1961 Act and is, in fact, more in line with disqualifications imposed for the more serious offence of dangerous driving causing death under s. 53 of that Act; (ii) The trial judge erred in regarding the appellant’s carelessness at the upper end of the scale in terms of its seriousness; (iii) The sentencing judge failed to have due regard to the mitigating factors present in the case; (iv) The sentencing judge failed to have due regard to the appellant’s personal circumstances and to the principle that the sentence imposed should be appropriate both to the offence itself and to the offending party; (v) The sentencing judge failed to have regard to the appellant’s fitness or unfitness to drive in determining the length of the disqualification order, and instead imposed the disqualification order primarily as a punishment.

Held by the Court that the sentencing judge erred in the imposition of a ten year disqualification period having regard to, firstly, the lack of aggravating factors such as excessive speed, alcohol consumption, of previous convictions for similar offending and secondly, the particular personal circumstances of the appellant and the extreme hardship that arises for her and her family from a prolonged period of disqualification.

The Court held that the appropriate disqualification period was one of five years, to date from the 1st March 2016 and it allowed the appeal on that basis; in so doing, the Court took into account the fact that the appellant had also received a one year suspended sentence, and the fact that the conditions attached to this suspension had been honoured in full by her for the relevant twelve month period.

Appeal allowed.

JUDGMENT (ex tempore) of the Court delivered on the 27th day of June 2017 by Mr. Justice Mahon

1 The appellant pleaded guilty on the 12th November 2015 at Cork Circuit Criminal Court to one count of careless driving causing death contrary to s. 52 of the Road Traffic Act 1961, as inserted by s. 50 of the Road Traffic Act 1968 and amended by s. 23 of the Road Traffic Act 2002 and s. 4 of the Road Traffic (No. 2) Act 2011. She was sentenced on the 25th February 2016 to twelve months imprisonment, with the entire sentence suspended for a period of twelve months on certain conditions. She was also disqualified from driving for a period of ten years from the 1st March 2016.

2 The appellant has not appealed against her suspended prison sentence, and limits her appeal to the imposition of the ten year disqualification order.

3 On the 21st December 2014 the appellant was driving her Renault Megane motor car on the Watergrasshill to Rathcormac Road in County Cork when she collided with a motorcyclist, Sean Coleman, as a consequence whereof Mr. Coleman was fatally injured.

4 The day in question was wet. The appellant emerged from a minor road onto a major carriageway on which the deceased was travelling, and into the path of the deceased's motorcycle. At the time, the deceased was travelling under the permitted speed limit and on his correct side of the road. He braked in an attempt to avoid the collision, but came off his motor cycle in so doing. Both vehicles were found to be in good working condition. It is quite clear that the deceased was entirely innocent and in no way contributed to this dreadful accident.

5 The appellant is a thirty eight year old mother of two children aged fourteen and eighteen. On the date in question, she was driving her car with one of her children as a front seat passenger. She said she did not see the deceased prior to emerging onto the major carriageway. The appellant had no previous convictions.

6 The appellant contends that the learned sentencing judge, in imposing the ten year disqualification erred as follows:-

(i) The disqualification imposed was out of line with those imposed by...