Judgment reserved in court referral bid

A MAN who twice tried to have his estranged wife killed has asked the Court of Criminal Appeal (CCA) to have his seven-year sentence referred to the Supreme Court on grounds it raises an important point of law.

Patrick Rafferty, a haulier with an address at Ballina, Co Tipperary, who offered an undercover garda €15,000 to kill his wife by faking a road accident, had appealed the severity of the sentence imposed on him by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court in January 2007. In December 2007, the CCA rejected that appeal.

Rafferty, aged 40, had pleaded guilty to soliciting Det Garda Patrick Crowley to murder his wife, Mary Rafferty, on February 7, 2005, at an area between the Five Alleys public house, Nenagh, Co Tipperary, and Daly’s Cross, Castleconnell, Co Limerick.

Yesterday the CCA, with Ms Justice Fidelma Macken presiding and sitting with Mr Justice Roderick Murphy and Mr Justice Eamonn DeValera, reserved judgment in Rafferty’s application to refer his case to the Supreme Court on grounds it raises a point of law of exceptional public importance which requires to be determined by that court.

Michael O’Higgins SC for Rafferty said that the point of law relates to the element of deterrence that had been built into his client’s sentence. Counsel argued that because what Rafferty had done was “a once off” the sentencing judge was not entitled to increase the sentence in order to deter others from doing the same thing.

Rosario Boyle SC, for the DPP has opposed the appeal.