A MAN WHO imprisoned his partner and was “sharpening knives at the end of the bed” while gardaí were outside, has been told his six month jail term was “unduly lenient”.
Brian McLaughlin (23), with an address at St Oran’s Road, Buncrana, Co Donegal, had pleaded guilty to assaulting his partner and falsely imprisoning her at their family home in Buncrana on 20 October, 2013.
He was sentenced at Letterkenny Circuit Criminal Court to three years in prison with the final two-and-a-half suspended by Judge Francis Comerford on 14 July, 2015.
The Director of Public Prosecutions successfully sought a review of McLaughlin’s sentence yesterday, with the Court of Appeal finding it “unduly lenient”.
Giving judgment, Justice Garrett Sheehan said McLaughlin and his partner had been out celebrating her birthday when McLaughlin left in a “somewhat aggrieved state of mind”.
Ms McLaughlin indicated that when she got home, he was standing at the door waiting for her. When she entered, he locked the door behind her, followed her up to the bedroom and punched her to the face with his fist, the judge said.
McLaughlin put his hands around her neck “strangling her”, the judge said. She was unable to breathe and thought he would kill her. He twisted her arm and pushed her head into the blanket such that she found it difficult to breathe.
The next thing she could remember, he was leaning over her pleading with her to wake up.
She called the gardaí who were able to see her when they arrived at 1.55am but McLaughlin refused the gardaí entry or to release her, the judge said. At this point, McLaughlin had armed himself with a 10 inch kitchen knife.
Phone call from his father
He was finally persuaded to release Ms McLaughlin at 4.40am following a phone call to him from his father.
Justice Sheehan said the sentencing judge held that the root of McLaughlin’s offending could be found in his mental health problems. While that may have been justified, Justice Sheehan said it remained “a fact that his voluntary consumption of alcohol contributed to his criminal offending” and did not excuse his responsibility for theses offences.
The judge said the victim’s injuries, the time she spent imprisoned and the fact that McLaughlin was “sharpening knives at the end of the bed while the gardaí were outside”, meant the length of the custodial sentence amounted to a substantial departure from what would have been appropriate.
Accordingly, Justice Sheehan, who sat with Justice Paul Butler and Justice John Edwards, found the sentence to be unduly lenient.
The court will hold a fresh sentence hearing at a later date.
Comments are closed for legal reasons.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say