Appeal Court cannot change juvenile sentencing errors, Cameron Blair murderer told

The judge said the issue arose because children are sentenced to detention and cannot be sentenced to imprisonment.

The three-judge court was asked to consider what jurisdiction it had in the case of a now 20-year-old man who was sentenced to detention for life with a review after 13 years having pleaded guilty to the murder of Cameron Blair (pictured). File picture: Gavin Browne

If the Court of Appeal finds that another court has made an error in sentencing a juvenile, it would not be able to impose a new sentence once the person turns 18, according to a judgment delivered today.

The three-judge court was asked to consider what jurisdiction it had in the case of a now 20-year-old man who was sentenced to detention for life with a review after 13 years having pleaded guilty to the murder of Cameron Blair. The court heard that the appellant was just shy of his 18th birthday in April 2020 when he was sentenced by Mr Justice Paul McDermott at the Central Criminal Court.

Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy on Thursday delivered the judgment of the three-judge Court of Appeal. She said that the issue arises because children are sentenced to detention and cannot be sentenced to imprisonment. If sentenced to a term that goes beyond their 18th birthday, they are transferred from the juvenile detention centre to the ordinary adult prison system once they reach 18 or shortly thereafter.

In submissions to the court, the Director of Public Prosecutions said that were the appeal court to find that the sentencing court had made an error, it could quash the original sentence but would not be able to impose a new sentence. Lawyers said that the appeal court is "confined to imposing a sentence or order which could have been imposed on the convicted person for the offence at the court of trial." 

The DPP argued that as the offender could not have been sentenced to imprisonment in 2020 and an adult cannot be sentenced to detention, the only option open to the appeal court would be to make "no order" which would "result in the immediate release of the applicant".

Ms Justice Kennedy agreed that the appeal court cannot sentence an adult to detention and it cannot sentence a person to imprisonment when that was not an option available to the sentencing court. She said the court would therefore be "constrained in the sentencing options" available. 

She also rejected arguments from the appellant that the court could quash the life sentence and impose a period of detention. "It is not possible to sentence an adult to detention in a child detention centre," she said. She said that this judgment was "no different in principle" to previous rulings of the appeal court.

President of the Court of Appeal Mr Justice George Birmingham noted that there is legislation before the Oireachtas "designed to deal with this". He also noted that this was the fourth similar case to come before the court in recent times.

Murder plea

Three years ago, the appellant pleaded guilty to murdering 20-year-old chemical engineering student Cameron Blair at a house on Bandon Road in Cork on January 16, 2020.

At a sentencing hearing in April 2020, Detective Garda Martin Canny of Togher Garda Station told prosecuting counsel Anne Rowland SC that Cameron was a keen sportsman and played rugby with Bandon Rugby Football Club. He had a black belt in karate and was very popular in his wide circle of friends, said the detective, adding that he possessed leadership qualities and was held in very high esteem. 

The 20-year-old was also a very well-rounded and solid young man with an infectious personality, who drew people to him and was always smiling.

Outlining the events that led up to the fatal stabbing, Det. Gda Canny said Cameron was at a house party on Bandon Road in Cork city in the home of a number of students. The defendant and his two teenage friends were walking past when they noticed the house party. 

Cameron was responsible for who could enter the house and allowed the three friends in but the three later became intoxicated and loud and armed themselves with knives, said Det. Gda Canny. The defendant took a very large kitchen knife and put it down his trousers. 

Later in the night the teenagers had left the house and Cameron was "holding fort" trying to prevent them getting back in and acting as a peacemaker, trying to control the situation. The youngest of the three teenagers was trying to push his way back into the house and produced a knife, said the detective. 

A number of calls were made by students in the house to gardaí looking for help. At one point, one of the girls in the house went outside and got in between the two groups to try to calm the situation down. However, the smallest of the three teenagers hit her with his closed fist to the side of the face, said Det. Gda Canny.

The detective said that the defendant was visible on CCTV footage wielding a knife across the road at around 9.17pm and "tapping" the knife off the back of his leg. He then walked back towards the house and lunged forward in a downward motion and stabbed Cameron once in the neck. 

A witness said he saw the accused man get up close to Cameron and hold the knife like a dagger before he stabbed him, said Det. Gda Canny. The teenager then ran away from the scene with the knife in his hand before dumping it in a nearby field along with a pair of gloves he had been wearing.

Cameron did not initially realise that he had been stabbed before he stumbled and lost consciousness. Paramedics attempted to resuscitate him at the scene before he was brought to CUH. He was declared dead at 10.20pm that night and the cause of death was a single stab wound to the neck.