A THEN-TEENAGER who armed himself with a knife and murdered student Cameron Blair has appealed his life sentence, arguing that the sentencing judge did not sufficiently take his immaturity and “dysfunctional background” into account.
The Central Criminal Court also heard how Cameron had ‘extended the hand of friendship’ to his murderer earlier in the night when he suggested the teenager and his friends be allowed to come into the party.
In a preliminary hearing last May, the Court of Appeal found that, should it find a lower court has made an error in sentencing a juvenile, it would not be able to impose a new sentence once the appellant has turned 18.
The issue arose as the appeal court is confined to imposing a sentence which was open to the court where the trial took place, in circumstances where children are sentenced to detention and cannot be sentenced to imprisonment, while an adult cannot be sentenced to detention.
Karl Finnegan SC today submitted to the three-judge court that while Mr Justice Paul McDermott delivered “detailed” reasons when passing sentence on the then 17-year-old defendant, the judgement took into account the accused’s age more than his maturity or immaturity.
The now 21-year-old appellant, who cannot be named as he was a child at the time of the murder, was sentenced to detention for life by the Central Criminal Court in April 2020 with a review after 13 years after he pleaded guilty to murdering Mr Blair (20) by stabbing him in the neck at a house party on Bandon Road in Cork City on January 16, 2020.
The defendant was sentenced to life in detention at Oberstown Children Detention Campus in Lusk, Co Dublin, with the sentence backdated to January 24, 2020, when the then-teenager was taken into custody.
He was transferred to an adult prison after his eighteenth birthday. A review of the sentence is to be conducted by the court on November 15, 2032, and an earliest release date of January 24, 2033 was ordered.
The court further ordered that a probation report be furnished to the court every three years.
Mr Finnegan submitted to the court that the sentence imposed on his client was “disproportionate and excessive in light of the circumstances of the case and his client’s difficult personal circumstances”.
Mr Finnegan further submitted that the trial judge had acknowledged that the appellant did not leave his home with a knife on the night of the murder and that it was “likely the appellant formed the relevant intention very shortly before the incident”.
“It is submitted that the offence was without such aggravating factors as might in other circumstances justify a minimum period of incarceration of 14 years. Such factors, it is submitted, include a lack of any real or significant premeditation or planning, callous disregard for the victim or an unremorseful attitude,” said counsel.
“Furthermore, it is submitted that the impulsivity, immaturity and a serious lack of judgement by which the offence was characterised, bring it into a lower category than that for which the sentence actually imposed would be appropriate,” submitted Mr Finnegan.
Mr Finnegan also submitted that the trial judge failed to attach appropriate weight to the mitigating factors, which included his client’s “dysfunctional background and family life, his early guilty plea, his youth and immaturity and lack of previous convictions”.
Counsel said the trial judge appeared to have taken a view that his client benefited by his age alone, rather than sufficiently taking into account his immaturity, in that he was to be sentenced under a different regime than an adult person.
“It is submitted that this was an error of principle and that it was incumbent on the trial judge to have regard to the specific youth and level of maturity displayed by the appellant on the information available to him,” submitted Mr Finnegan.
Counsel said “immaturity was raised in the very first probation report from the sentencing hearing and that still is something that is a factor”.
Mr Finnegan said the trial judge referenced his client’s immaturity but “ultimately, more emphasis was on the appellant’s age. There was less emphasis placed on the question of maturity”.
Mr Finnegan also submitted that the trial judge erred in setting any review of the sentence for his client at 13 years from the date of incarceration, when the Parole Act 2019 entitles his client to apply for a parole review after 12 years.
Anne Rowland SC, for the DPP, said the trial judge took “significant” account of mitigating factors in a case where the accused armed himself with a 21cm bladed knife taken from a kitchen and then hid it on his person and also down the side of a sofa at the house party.
Ms Rowland submitted that the trial judge noted that while alcohol had been consumed by the appellant, he “had not been very intoxicated” on the night.
Ms Rowland further submitted that the appellant took the knife from the house and went to an off-licence before returning and entering into an altercation.
Counsel said that the appellant had also initially denied the stabbing of Mr Blair to gardaí before handing over a different set of clothes for analysis.
“The learned sentencing judge opined the fatal blow was ‘vicious, deliberate and cowardly on a man who was, with great difficulty and restraint, trying to calm people down and was unarmed’,” submitted Ms Rowland.
Ms Rowland said the sentencing judge also noted that the appellant “fully understood the nature and likely consequence of what he was doing”.
“The appellant armed himself with a very large knife approximately one hour before he inflicted the fatal wound on the deceased.
Although he was on the periphery of matters in the lead up to the fatal stabbing, he was watching events as they played out and was observed tapping the knife off his knee before he engaged with the deceased.
The appellant thrust the knife into the deceased’s neck,” submitted Ms Rowland.
Ms Rowland noted that the appellant, then aged 17 years and eight months, was at a more advanced developmental stage when he stabbed Mr Blair than someone at a younger stage of around 13-15 years and benefited from being convicted as a child, as opposed to an adult.
Counsel submitted that at “no point” was the issue of a parole review raised during the appellant’s sentence hearing and that if a review was granted after 12 years then it would mean an outright life sentence would have had to be imposed, as it might be on an adult.
President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice George Birmingham said the court would reserve its judgement in the matter and adjourned the appeal to December 5, when parties are also invited to make their submissions on any issues regarding the ongoing anonymity of the appellant.
Three years ago at the Central Criminal Court, the appellant pleaded guilty to murdering 20-year-old chemical engineering student Cameron Blair at the house on Bandon Road.
At a sentencing hearing in April 2020, Detective Garda Martin Canny of Togher Garda Station told Ms Rowland that Mr Blair was a keen sportsman and played rugby with Bandon Rugby Football Club. He had a black belt in karate and was very popular in his wide circle of friends, said the detective, adding that he possessed leadership qualities and was held in very high esteem. The 20-year-old was also a very well-rounded and solid young man with an infectious personality, who drew people to him and was always smiling, he said.
Outlining the events that led up to the fatal stabbing, Det Gda Canny said Mr Blair was at a house party on Bandon Road in Cork City in the home of a number of students.
The defendant and his two teenage friends were walking past when they noticed the house party. Mr Blair was responsible for who could enter the house and allowed the three friends in but the three later became intoxicated and loud and armed themselves with knives, said Det Gda Canny.
The defendant took a very large kitchen knife and put it down his trousers. Later in the night the teenagers had left the house and Cameron was “holding fort” trying to prevent them getting back in and acting as a peacemaker, trying to control the situation.
The youngest of the three teenagers was trying to push his way back into the house and produced a knife, said the detective. A number of calls were made by students in the house to gardaí looking for help.
At one point, one of the girls in the house went outside and got in between the two groups to try to calm the situation down. However, the smallest of the three teenagers hit her with his closed fist to the side of the face, said Det Gda Canny.
The detective said that the defendant was visible on CCTV footage wielding a knife across the road at around 9.17pm and “tapping” the knife off the back of his leg. He then walked back towards the house, lunged forward in a downward motion and stabbed Mr Blair once in the neck.
A witness said he saw the accused man get up close to Mr Blair and hold the knife like a dagger before he stabbed him, said Det Gda Canny. The teenager then ran away from the scene with the knife in his hand before dumping it in a nearby field along with a pair of gloves he had been wearing.
Mr Blair did not initially realise that he had been stabbed before he stumbled and lost consciousness.
Paramedics attempted to resuscitate him at the scene before he was brought to Cork University Hospital. He was declared dead at 10.20pm that night and the cause of death was a single stab wound to the neck.
In submissions made last May, the Director of Public Prosecutions said that were the appeal court to find that the sentencing court had made an error, it could quash the original sentence but would not be able to impose a new sentence.
Lawyers said that the appeal court is “confined to imposing a sentence or order which could have been imposed on the convicted person for the offence at the court of trial”.
The DPP argued that as the offender could not have been sentenced to imprisonment in 2020 and an adult cannot be sentenced to detention, the only option open to the appeal court would be to make “no order” which would “result in the immediate release of the applicant”.
Ms Justice Kennedy agreed that the appeal court cannot sentence an adult to detention and it cannot sentence a person to imprisonment when that was not an option available to the sentencing court.
She said the court would therefore be “constrained in the sentencing options” available. She also rejected arguments from the appellant that the court could quash the life sentence and impose a period of detention.
“It is not possible to sentence an adult to detention in a child detention centre,” she said.
She said that this judgment was “no different in principle” to previous rulings of the appeal court.
President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice George Birmingham noted that there is legislation before the Oireachtas “designed to deal with this”. He also noted that this was the fourth similar case to come before the court in recent times.
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