Court reduces sentences for St Patrick's Day attacks

Four men who assaulted six people attending a St Patrick’s Day parade in an incident of “unprovoked savagery” have succeeded in having their sentences reduced by a total of eight years on appeal.

The Court of Criminal appeal today found that there had been an error in principle in the imposition of sentences ranging from three to ten years on Ned (aged 23) and Dan (aged 19) Delaney and their co-accused John-Paul Delaney (aged 20) and Patrick O’Keeffe (aged 21) for charges relating to violent disorder and assault.

Brothers Ned and Dan Delaney, of Caherclough, Tipperary had both pleaded guilty to violent disorder and four counts of assault in Tipperary town on March 17, 2009.

John Paul Delaney, of Kilminchy, Portlaoise, had pleaded guilty to violent order and two counts of assault, while Patrick O’Keeffe, of St Alba’s Drive, Tipperary, had pleaded guilty to violent disorder and one count of assault on the same date.

Presiding judge Mr Justice Donal O’Donnell, sitting with Mr Justice Paul Gilligan and Mr Justice Daniel O’Keeffe, said that the sentencing judge had erred by applying the maximum sentence for violent disorder on Ned and Dan Delaney and had also erred in imposing consecutive sentences for assault charges on each of the four individuals.

Sentencing the men at Clonmel Circuit Criminal Court last March, Judge Thomas Teehan said that the assaults, where innocent bystanders were kicked, punched and attacked with signs, were among the “most sickening” acts of violence he had experienced in his 40 years presiding over criminal cases.

The court substituted a sentence of eight years with 18 months suspended for the 10-year sentence originally imposed on Ned Delaney for violent disorder. The three-and-a-half year sentences he received for each of the four assaults will run concurrently to each other rather than consecutively as originally directed.

Dan Delaney also had his ten-year sentence for violent disorder substituted by an eight-year sentence, while the court suspended the last two years. The three-year sentences he received for each of the four assaults will now run concurrently to each other.

The CCA directed that the five-year sentence imposed on John Paul Delaney for violent disorder be replaced by a sentence of four years with the last year suspended. Ancillary sentences of two and three years for assault are to run concurrently to each other.

Patrick O’Keefe, whom the appeal court described as being involved in the incident for a “relatively short period of time”, had his three-year sentence for violent disorder reduced to one of two years imprisonment with the final year suspended. A five months sentence for assault was directed to run concurrently to the disorder charge.