A serial armed robber who was on bail when he took part in a raid on a Dublin bank, during which an employee had a gun pressed into his chest, has had his prison sentence cut by six months by the Court of Appeal.
In a victim impact statement delivered to the sentencing court, another staff member at the branch said she was told she would be shot if she didn’t hand over the cash.
At the Court of Appeal on Wednesday, Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy said that Judge Pauline Codd had erred by setting a headline sentence before mitigation of 12 years on Dermot O’Callaghan (58) but 11 years on his co-accused.
Ms Justice Kennedy then quashed O’Callaghan’s original sentence of eight years with the final 12 months suspended and resentenced him to seven years with the final six months suspended.
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O’Callaghan, with an address at Seagull House flats in Dolphin’s Barn, Dublin 8, had pleaded guilty under Section 27B of the Firearms Act to possession of an imitation firearm with intent to rob Ulster Bank in Stillorgan, on September 26th, 2017.
At his sentencing hearing, Dublin Circuit Court heard a bank worker was stepping out of the door of the Stillorgan branch for his lunch break on the day of the robbery when a gun was pressed into his chest.
He was pushed back into the branch by two men, who ordered the customers inside to drop to the floor and told the women staffing the cash desk: “Give me the money or I’ll shoot.”
The court heard that a female bank teller was so terrified that she froze up, and a colleague had to help her bag the money.
The men made off with €13,200 in cash and another £800 sterling. As they left, one of the men told the victims: “Have a nice day.”
O’Callaghan has 22 previous convictions, including convictions for armed robbery, burglary, firearms possession, and false imprisonment.
He was sentenced in July 2021 by Judge Codd to eight years’ imprisonment, with the final year suspended. The sentence was to be served consecutively to an eight-year sentence he was already serving for robbery and carrying firearms.
At his appeal against this sentence, defence counsel Paul J Carroll SC said that the sentencing judge determined that the offence was at the higher end of the scale and set a headline sentence of 12 years as O’Callaghan was on bail at the time serving a suspended sentence.
Mr Carroll said that O’Callaghan’s co-accused had 46 previous convictions, and in his case a headline sentence of 11 years was set, which was then reduced to nine years with the final 18 months suspended, making a total of seven and a half years.
He said this was an error as the court started out at different headline sentences that were not justified.
President of the Court of Appeal, Mr Justice George Birmingham said that there were two men involved in the robbery, with the net sentence for the co-accused set at seven and a half years, while O’Callaghan got eight years with one suspended. He said “at first blush” it looked like O’Callaghan did better but acknowledged that this sentence was going to be consecutive to one O’Callaghan was already serving.
In delivering the court’s judgment, Ms Justice Kennedy noted that the appellant had 22 previous convictions. She said the sentencing judge set O’Callaghan’s headline sentence higher than that of his co-accused because he was on bail at the time and the offence was committed while there was a suspended sentence hanging over him.
Ms Justice Kennedy said that while the judge properly identified as an aggravating factor the fact that the offence was committed while O’Callaghan was on bail, she fell into error in the reason she gave for placing his headline sentence higher.
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