The Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday rejected an application by a Co Cork horse dealer for reduction of a four-year prison sentence which was imposed on him for failure to make tax returns to the Revenue Commissioners for the years 1992-98.
Jeremiah O'Driscoll (57), The Cottage, Farmers' Cross, Co Cork, and Ardcullen, Hollyhill, Cork city, had been assessed as owing the Revenue Commissioners £232,000 in tax, of which he had paid £100,000 on account before being sentenced at Cork Circuit Criminal Court on May 22nd last year.
A further £30,000 had since been paid to the Revenue.
At the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday, Mr Martin Giblin SC, for O'Driscoll, argued that the sentence was excessive in that the court appeared to have taken into account the background debt rather than the actual offences to which O'Driscoll had pleaded guilty.
Counsel compared the position of O'Driscoll with that of George Redmond, the former assistant Dublin city and county manager, who was fined £7,500 in April 2000 for failing to make tax returns over a 10-year period against a background debt of £783,000.
Mrs Justice Denham, sitting with Mr Justice Johnson and Mr Justice O'Neill, dismissed the appeal against severity of sentence. She said the trial judge had indicated that he might be considerably influenced after a year of the sentence if further payments had been made by then.
The circumstances in the George Redmond case were entirely different from the case before the court, and it took the view that it should not interfere with the sentence imposed, she said.