Court of Appeal sets aside sentence for breach of peace undertaking and imposes five years imprisonment.

THE COURT OF APPEAL Record Number: 322/2024

McCarthy J. Neutral Citation Number [2025] IECA 260 Collins J. Owens J.

IN THE MATTER OF AN APPLICATION PURSUANT TO SECTION 2 OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT 1993

Between/

THE PEOPLE (AT THE SUIT OF THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS)

APPLICANT -AND-

IAN DOYLE RESPONDENT

JUDGMENT of the Court delivered by Mr. Justice Alexander Owens on the 20th day of November 2025.

1. On 9 October 2024 Ian Doyle pleaded guilty to counts of threatening to kill or cause serious harm to AB at her home in Dublin between 19 and 24 February 2023 (Count

2 on the indictment), and of assaulting her causing her harm on 19 February 2023 at her home (Count 3 on the indictment). These were the index offences/offending for the purpose of sentencing. Ian Doyle’s guilty pleas to these offences were offered on the basis that the full facts relating to other offending charged in the indictment would be given in evidence and be taken into consideration in sentencing.

2. This offending was the false imprisonment of AB between 19 and 24 February 2023, a further assault causing harm to AB on 22 February 2023 and criminal damage caused by Ian Doyle when he smashed her iPhone in late January 2023.

3. Ian Doyle was 32 years of age at the time of the index offending. AB was 39 years of age. He was arrested for this offending on 4 May 2023 and he has been in custody since that date.

4. On indictment, the maximum custodial sentence for assault causing harm was then five years’ imprisonment. The maximum custodial sentence for a threat to kill or cause serious harm is ten years’ imprisonment. The maximum custodial sentence for false imprisonment is imprisonment for life. The maximum custodial sentence for criminal damage to property in this type of case is ten years’ imprisonment.

5. At the time of the index offending Ian Doyle was on bail, charged with assault causing harm to a previous partner. He was subsequently convicted of this offence following a trial. He was sentenced in relation to that offending on 13 May 2024 and received a sentence of three years and six months’ imprisonment.

6. The sentencing hearing for the index offending took place on 25 November 2024.

7. The learned sentencing judge imposed a sentence of three years and six months’ imprisonment on the count of assault causing harm on 19 February 2023, consecutive to the expiration of the prison sentence which Ian Doyle was serving.

She suspended the final six months for a period of two years on condition that he keep the peace and be of good behaviour for the period of his imprisonment; be under Probation Service supervision for one year from release and “engage with ‘Move and Mend’ as directed by the Probation Service.” She directed that Ian Doyle get credit for any time spent in custody relating solely to the index offending.

8. When imposing said sentence, the learned sentencing judge took into consideration the offences charged in the other counts in the indictment, including the count relating to the threat to kill or cause serious injury to AB, to which Ian Doyle had entered a plea of guilty.

9. The Director of Public Prosecutions has applied to this Court to review this sentence.

She contends that this sentence was unduly lenient and that the learned sentencing judge erred in not imposing a distinct sentence on the count relating to the threat to kill. She contends that the learned sentencing judge placed excessive weight on a late plea, personal and mitigating matters advanced on behalf of Ian Doyle which did not merit this treatment and failed to adequately reflect principles of specific and general deterrence in the sentence imposed.

10. The Director of Public Prosecutions contends that, having regard to the overall seriousness of Ian Doyle’s offending, the learned sentencing judge ought to have used the offence of threat to kill, which carried a higher maximum sentence, to calculate the headline sentence and that the seriousness of this offence should have been assessed in light of Ian Doyle’s other offending.

11. At the time of this threat to kill, AB had already been badly beaten up, thrown down the stairs, and held prisoner in her own home for nearly five days by Ian Doyle. He had already demonstrated to her that he was well capable of killing her or causing her serious injury. She was in fear for her life and he threatened to kill her if she reported him. This was a particularly serious threat to kill.

12. AB lived in a house in Dublin with her young daughter. She had been in a relationship with Ian Doyle since January 2023. This relationship was a controlling one. He smashed her iPhone when she refused a phone which he had given her as a replacement for it. His purpose was to pair his phone with her new phone and he got angry with her when she did not want this.

13. Late on the evening of 18 February 2023 a Garda officer had occasion to call at AB’s house following a report of a disturbance. Ian Doyle and AB were present when she called. AB was uninjured at that point. Her daughter was asleep in a bedroom upstairs.

14. After this Garda officer departed, Ian Doyle became very aggressive towards AB. He gave her a very severe kicking which started with a kick in the chest which sent her flying towards the fireplace. He followed up with a number of kicks to her back, leg and stomach. She feared for her life. He then dragged her up off the floor and threw her on a chair. He shouted at her that she was to blame for his actions: “Look what you fucking have me doing.” She tried to calm him. As he was walking away from her he turned round and kicked her in the right side of the head, knocking her out.

She ended up on the floor. When she recovered consciousness, he told her that he thought he had killed her and that she had been out cold for 25 minutes. He then put her back on the chair. She was afraid he would kill her.

15. AB tried to flee from her home with her daughter in her arms during that night. Ian Doyle grabbed her and pulled her back inside. This incident was caught on CCTV. He kept her prisoner until 24 February in her home and she was under his control on the one occasion when he allowed her out during that period. He ensured that she would not be seen out. He refused to allow her to go to hospital, get medical attention or report what he had done to her.

16. AB did not remember going to bed on the night of the first assault causing harm.

This amnesia is not surprising, given that she had been knocked out. She recalled waking up in her bedroom with her daughter. Her bedclothes were covered in blood.

She stayed in her bedroom all of the following day which was a Sunday. She was worried about her safety and that of her daughter.

17. At some stage Ian Doyle got pills which he said were painkillers. He gave these to AB during the following week. They made her feel dazed. He also brought a roll of plaster and paper stitches and instructed her to have a bath to get rid of the blood.

18. These efforts at treatment were solely directed to his own interests. He wanted to conceal the injuries which he had inflicted on AB. To this end he also kept tight control over all of her phone contacts during the following week, supervising what she said to her mother on the phone and explaining away to a neighbour who called to check on her that she had a fight with a friend. He sent text messages to her care worker pretending that they came from her.

19. On the Wednesday of that week, Ian Doyle became violent when AB’s daughter asked for something to eat. He shoved her down the stairs in front of her daughter.

She fell to the bottom of the stairs and suffered further soft-tissue injuries. This assault causing harm was the subject of Count 3 on the indictment.

20. On the Thursday of that week AB went to collect her social welfare money from a Spar. While she was in this shop Ian Doyle remained outside in a taxi with her daughter. She was asked about her injuries by two men in the shop and was unable to explain what he had done. That evening she was getting her strength back and mentioned to Ian Doyle that “this isn’t right.” He apologised to her and then went on to threaten her that “If you open your mouth to anyone about this I’ll cut your throat and eat your fucking liver.”

21. Eventually, on the Friday morning Ian Doyle had to attend court and left AB alone with her phone. She contacted a friend who took her to hospital. Ian Doyle insisted on accompanying them. He attempted to hold her hand and kiss her in front of medical staff. His purpose was to prevent her from explaining how she had received her injuries.

22. A Garda took photographs of AB’s injuries during the following week. These show very significant generalised bruising in varying stages of resolution.

23. A gash on her right temple required stitching. There was generalised bruising over most of her back and the sides of her torso, around the back of her shoulders and the backs of her upper arms. This was consistent with blunt-force injuries from multiple kicks. There were distinct marks consistent with kicks or stamping in the area of her low back.

24. She had bruising consistent with two black eyes in the course of recovery. She had generalised yellow bruising on the forehead extending to the side of her face around her eyes. Both of her ears looked reddened and inflamed. She had multiple bruises on the inner aspects of her right upper arm consistent with grabbing and pressing hard with fingers. She had other generalised marks in the inner elbow and towards the axilla consistent with bruising from kicks or blows. She had a similar pattern of marks in much the same areas of the left upper arm. A photograph of her right leg shows generalised bruising on the front of her upper leg and further generalised bruising on the front of the knee and the inner aspect of the knee and extending down the calf muscle of that leg.

25. Garda photographs of AB’s house showed much evidence of blood splatter and spilled blood drops on walls and flooring in numerous locations on the ground floor and upper floor. This assault resulted in loss of a great deal of blood from the laceration to AB’s forehead and which resulted in considerable damage and soiling in her home.

26. AB’s victim impact statement shows that she is in fear of Ian Doyle and had to leave Ireland as a result of this incident. As a result of this she is unable to be in regular contact with her older daughters who remain in Ireland. She thought Ian Doyle was going to kill her in this incident. She thought she had fractured ribs, though this transpired not to be the case. Her daughter, who was present while the assaults were taking place, was very upset and is attending counselling. Her daughter has nightmares, wets the bed and is afraid of men around her. There can be no doubt that awaiting Ian Doyle’s trial for this offending and seeing this process through was very stressful for AB.

27. A medical report discloses injuries consistent with what appears in the Garda photographs. AB was extremely fortunate that Ian Doyle did not kill her, or leave her with broken bones, or an acquired brain injury.

28. The learned sentencing judge elected to take the offence of assault causing harm on

19 February 2023 as the principal count for the purposes of sentencing. She decided that in light of the extensive aggravating factors the appropriate headline sentence for this offence was the maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment for assault causing harm.

29. In the next stage of her sentencing determination the learned sentencing judge considered what she described as mitigating factors and personal circumstances, and the principle of totality and proportionality.

30. The learned sentencing judge identified personal circumstances, including his father’s tragic death in 2016, his subsequent use of alcohol and drugs, and his mental difficulties. There were no independent materials, such as reports, to support claims made on his behalf, as his counsel acknowledged. She accepted an apology and late guilty plea as mitigating factors. A Garda witness conceded that this plea may have been of some value to the prosecution.

31. The learned sentencing judge gave one year and six months’ credit in the light of these factors. That represented a 30% deduction from the headline sentence.

32. The learned sentencing judge then referred to the principles of punishment, deterrence and rehabilitation. This rehabilitation related to his claims through counsel that he had commenced on an “Alternative to Violence” programme in prison, had resumed studies, intended to sit his Leaving Certificate and was studying English, Maths and Geography. The sentencing judge accepted these claims. She imposed the suspended element of the sentence to encourage rehabilitation and suspended the final six months for two years.

33. Was the sentence imposed on Ian Doyle unduly lenient? “Unduly Lenient” means a “substantial departure from what would be regarded as the appropriate sentence.”

There must be a sentencing error of principle which results in that type of substantial departure before this Court will intervene.

34. What does “substantial departure from what would be regarded as the appropriate sentence” mean? The application of s.2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993 is not confined to cases where offending should attract long custodial sentences.

35. This Court understands why the learned sentencing judge opted to take the offence of assault causing harm to AB committed by Ian Doyle on 19 February 2023 as the primary offence for the purpose of sentencing. She was entitled to take the view that this assault causing harm was the most serious offence committed by Ian Doyle against AB.

36. The learned sentencing judge proceeded from a starting point of five years’ imprisonment and made deductions from that to take into account personal and mitigating factors and the need for proportionality when imposing consecutive sentences.

37. The learned sentencing judge made an error in principle in adopting this course.

38. Even taken in isolation, the assault causing harm on 19 February 2023 was a very serious offence which likely merited the maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment permitted by law, notwithstanding Ian Doyle’s guilty plea and any mitigating factors and other reductions which might in other circumstances be appropriate to reduce a headline sentence or to achieve totality in consecutive sentencing.

39. This assault was only the start of a course of very serious offending committed by Ian Doyle against his domestic partner over a period of five days.

40. The decision to select the assault causing harm on 19 February 2023 as the sole offence for the purpose calculating a headline sentence deprived the learned sentencing judge of the option of imposing a sentence of imprisonment on Ian Doyle for the index offending which was greater than five years.

41. This Court considers that a higher headline sentence than five years was an appropriate starting point in the sentencing exercise because Ian Doyle’s overall offending was very serious and because Ian Doyle’s assault on AB causing harm on

19 February 2023 was itself potentially so serious as to merit a full sentence of five years imprisonment.

42. The learned sentencing judge also erred in principle in applying a 30% reduction to the headline sentence for Ian Doyle’s offence of assault causing harm on 19 February 2023 and in suspending the final six months of that sentence.

43. This Court has concluded that the sentence which she imposed on Ian Doyle was unduly lenient.

44. Ian Doyle’s guilty plea was forthcoming at the last moment. He brought this matter to the door of the court before he capitulated. This was not indicative of remorse.

45. While Ian Doyle had a right to maintain his stance of not guilty and seek to have the Court require AB’s personal attendance at the trial, this did not have a wholly neutral sentencing consequence. Mental harm to AB caused by the assault was aggravated by the anxiety of having to give evidence at trial and of having to come from abroad to attend it. This was relevant to any assessment of whether he should get some credit for his guilty plea.

46. The evidence did not support any treatment of Ian Doyle’s guilty plea as a feature which could or should have any significant mitigating impact on the headline sentence. His assault causing harm to AB on 19 February 2023 was sufficiently serious to warrant imposing a custodial sentence of five years notwithstanding his plea. The sort of small difficulties for the prosecution relating to proof of video footage identified as giving value to this plea did not justify any significant reduction of his headline sentence. Most trials are beset by minor concerns of this sort relating to some aspect of proof.

47. Ian Doyle was not entitled to the benefit of any credit as a result of having freed up valuable court time and State prosecution resources for another trial because he took and used a trial date. If he had given an earlier indication of a plea an extra trial could have been listed for the date of his trial.

48. No sentencing value could be put on Ian Doyle’s claims of apology and remorse.

They were meaningless nonsense. Were he genuinely remorseful, he would have recognised and acknowledged the seriousness of his offending against AB while awaiting trial. During that period he was serving a sentence of three years and six months’ imprisonment for a domestic assault causing harm to a previous partner.

There was no evidence of any change of attitude to domestic violence or effort at rehabilitation prior to his plea.

49. The learned sentencing judge took into account Ian Doyle’s circumstances and misfortunes in life. She was obliged to consider his particular circumstances. He was in his thirties when he committed the index offences. He has been in prison now since 4 May 2023 and, at least in theory, should not have access to alcohol and drugs. His unverified claim through counsel to have made “good progress” on addiction issues, if true, made a virtue of necessity.

50. Ian Doyle had a prior criminal record. He committed many minor offences, including theft, public order offences and possession of controlled drugs.

51. More significantly, at time of sentencing for the index offences, he had three previous convictions for assault. One of these sentences was passed by the District Court. Another conviction in the Circuit Court related to an assault of a former domestic partner.

52. Ian Doyle was on bail, charged with yet another domestic assault, being an assault causing harm to a former partner, at the time when he assaulted AB. He was convicted of this offence prior to his guilty pleas to the index offences and received a sentence of three years and six months. He was fully alive to the seriousness of his situation if the Gardaí got to hear of what he had done to AB.

53. This Court has no doubt that Ian Doyle’s misfortunes in life and upbringing have been prayed in aid in mitigation in his numerous interactions with the criminal courts over the years. On this, the law of diminishing returns must begin to set in at some point and that point has long since passed in his case. His offending in the index offences had nothing to do with addiction, dyslexia or mental health issues. It related to an aspect of his personality which manifests itself in controlling and beating-up his domestic partners. Such information provided to the learned sentencing judge about his past gave no basis for any downward adjustment of the headline sentence.

54. This Court agrees that totality must be taken into account where a court engages in consecutive sentencing. In order to evaluate the effect of a consecutive sentence it is necessary to examine what result of that sentence will be. It is also necessary to assess whether the index offending is so serious as to outweigh a reduction to achieve proportionality in consecutive sentencing which might otherwise be justified.

55. Between 4 May 2023 and the date of a conviction which led to his sentence on 13 May 2024, Ian Doyle was in custody relating to the index offending. He served up to a year of imprisonment for his offending relating to AB prior to the conviction which led that sentence, which was for assault causing harm to a different domestic partner.

56. His anticipated release date relating to his 13 May 2024 conviction is in April 2026.

At that stage, the unserved balance of any term of incarceration imposed following his guilty pleas on 9 October 2024 will kick-in.

57. As the prospect of remission is irrelevant in all aspects of sentencing, it follows that the sentence imposed on 13 May 2024 should be treated as expiring in late 2027.

This would push out termination of the custodial element of the consecutive sentence imposed on 25 November 2024 to late 2029.

58. If Ian Doyle had been sentenced to five years’ imprisonment on 25 November 2024, consecutive to his existing sentence, his imprisonment would end in late 2031, depending on the date when he was convicted of the offence of assault causing harm for which he received his sentence on 13 May 2024.

59. A reduction of the headline sentence of five years’ imprisonment for assault causing harm by 30% to take into account the principle of totality in consecutive sentencing was not merited in this case. This reduction was unduly lenient. The seriousness of Ian Doyle’s offending required that the learned sentencing judge impose a much longer custodial sentence. The learned sentencing judge was provided with insufficient material to justify suspension of any part of the custodial sentence to encourage rehabilitation or to ensure that he keep the peace. This Court notes that he did not honour a previous undertaking by him to keep the peace and be of good behaviour.

60. In light of these conclusions, this Court will set aside the sentence imposed on 25 November 2024 and proceed to resentence Ian Doyle. He has produced nothing for the purposes of this resentencing which would justify this Court in suspending any part of the custodial element of the sentence which it will impose.

61. These sentences are for a term of five years’ imprisonment in respect of the two counts which Ian Doyle pleaded guilty to on 9 October 2024. Each of these two sentences will run concurrently with the other.

62. These sentences will be consecutive to the term of the sentence which he is serving currently and take into account time served by him while imprisoned between 4 May 2023 and the date of his conviction which led to his sentence on 13 May 2024. This Court is obliged to impose consecutive sentences because the index offences were committed while he was on bail.

63. In arriving at these sentences, this Court has determined a headline sentence of seven years’ imprisonment as appropriate to reflect the overall gravity of Ian Doyle’s offending.

64. This Court considers that the minimum period of incarceration which Ian Doyle should serve in relation to these offences, after adjustments of these headline sentences, is five years’ imprisonment.

65. The appropriate sentence for the offence of assault causing harm committed by Ian Doyle on 19 February 2023 is the maximum sentence of incarceration permitted by law. This Court considers that this offence was so serious and exceptional as not to merit any reduction on account of his guilty plea, such limited mitigating and personal factors as might exist, or proportionality in consecutive sentencing.

66. This Court has made a net downward adjustment of two years from the headline sentence of seven years in the case of the index offence of threat to kill. The main purpose of this adjustment was to apply the principle of totality in consecutive sentencing. This Court also took into account such very minor matters in mitigation and those personal circumstances of Ian Doyle as were identified during the sentencing hearing.

67. This five year term of imprisonment is greater than that which this Court would have imposed if Ian Doyle had not committed this offence while on bail and had not been in an intimate relationship with AB. This course is mandated by s.11(4) of the Criminal Justice Act 1984 and s.40(2) of the Domestic Violence Act 2018. There are no exceptional circumstances which would justify this Court in disapplying these sentencing requirements.

68. These statutory provisions do not apply to the sentence of imprisonment imposed by this Court on Ian Doyle for the index offence of assault causing harm. The reason for this is that this Court is imposing the maximum sentence of incarceration permitted by law for that offence.