Last day for DPP to appeal O’Donoghue jail term

THE Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has until the end of today to lodge an appeal against the four-year jail term handed to Wayne O’Donoghue.

O’Donoghue was last month jailed for four years for the manslaughter of 11-year-old Robert Holohan, triggering an angry reaction from the boy’s family.

The boy’s mother, Majella Holohan, wrote to DPP James Hamilton asking him to appeal against what she said was the shortness of the sentence.

The deadline for any appeal by the DPP passes at the end of today - 28 days since O’Donoghue was jailed at the Central Criminal Court sitting at Ennis, Co Clare.

But a courts source said that an appeal from the Director of Public Prosecutions was unlikely.

And the DPP’s office has a “no comment” policy.

Frank Buttimer, Wayne O’Donoghue’s solicitor, said he has not been informed of any appeal.

He has already indicated that his 21-year-old client will be serving his term and will not appeal the sentence.

Speaking on the day the 21-year-old was jailed, Mr Buttimer said: “Wayne O’Donoghue ... has accepted responsibility for the tragic death of Robert Holohan.

“He accepts the penalty of the court and will now proceed to serve his sentence without appeal.”

However, Ms Holohan contacted the DPP, asking him to exercise his powers to ask the Appeal Court to get the jail sentence increased.

But Mr Justice Paul Carney, who jailed O’Donoghue, said the length of the sentence he imposed was determined by the rules made by Appeal Court judges.

Sentencing O’Donoghue, he said: “It is common for family members, at the conclusion of cases such as this, to complain that the life of their loved one was valued by the court only at the level of the sentence imposed.

“This is an approach which the courts do not and cannot take.

“Obviously, young Robert’s life was so precious as to be incapable of measurement in any such terms. It is also the case that nothing I can do or say could in any way assuage the Holohans’s grief.

“In imposing sentence I am not a free agent but am subject to the directions of the Court of Criminal Appeal,” he said.

Solicitor Ernest Cantillon, who represents the Holohans, was unavailable for comment.