Better guidelines would help our judges give consistent sentences

LUCIA O’FARRELL is distraught. Her son, Shane, has been killed and the man who took the life of the 23-year-old last week was given the choice of eight months in jail or leaving the country within 21 days.

Not surprisingly Zigimantas Gridzuiska, 39, is heading for Lithuania, his home country.

One wonders what they will make of him on his return. Will he drive, given that he has been told that he cannot drive in Ireland for the next ten years if he ever returns to the country? It’s not that he seems to have had too much respect for the law anywhere: the Irish courts have been told that he had run up 17 criminal convictions in his native country before coming to Ireland. He added another 12 convictions in Northern Ireland and 20 here in the Republic after he settled in Carrickmacross in Monaghan. Among his offences are theft, aggravated theft, drug possession, malicious damage and handling stolen property and as nine road traffic offences.