A Co Offaly man, who had been jailed for 5½ years for trying to kill his mentally ill brother by dousing him in petrol and setting him ablaze, has had his prison sentence increased to eight years by the Court of Criminal Appeal.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) had contended the original sentence imposed on Kenneth Connolly (30), Woodlawn Drive, Clonbollogue, Co Offaly, was unduly lenient.
Connolly was sentenced by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court last July to seven years in jail, with the final 18 months suspended, after he admitted throwing a shampoo bottle filled with petrol in January 2005 over his brother William (36), before setting William on fire with a hat attached to the end of a pole.
Connolly then locked his brother out of the house as he screamed for help. William scaled a barbed-wire fence in an attempt to get to a nearby river but collapsed and neighbours had to put out the flames. He suffered 65 per cent burns to his body and lost a finger and thumb. Fifty per cent of these were "full thickness" burns and he had spent two months in an induced coma.
The trial judge heard Connolly had set out to kill his brother after he came across a copy of their mother's will which left the house to Connolly, but granted residency to his brother, a reclusive man with a mental illness.
The two had lived at the family home in Co Offaly with their widowed mother, another brother and a younger sister.
At the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday, Mr Justice Joseph Finnegan, with Mr Justice Daniel Herbert and Mr Justice Paul Gilligan, agreed with counsel for the DPP that Connolly's initial sentence was "inappropriate".
This was a "calculated" and "callous" crime and the victim had suffered extensive injuries, the judge said. The court would increase the sentence to 10 years, with the final two years suspended. He said the trial judge failed to take into account the "premeditated manner" in which the offence was carried out.
Fergal Foley, for the DPP, who had argued the seven-year sentence was unduly lenient, said this was a horrific crime which was "carefully and methodically planned" and executed with "deliberate care and skill".
Colm Smith SC, for Connolly, said that while this was a serious offence, there was no error in principle in the sentence imposed. The trial judge had taken into account Connolly's early guilty plea, his previous good behaviour and his co-operation with gardaí.