Sentence Appeal Rejected

A woman who was jailed for two and a half years has had her bid to cut her sentence rejected by the Court of Appeal.

Lianne McKee was jailed last year for one count of affray, two assaults on police officers, one offence of possessing a bladed article in public and breaching a suspended sentence.

Deemster Graeme Cook sentenced Ms McKee after she pleaded guilty to the offence of affray before the Summary Court after an incident at the Heron pub in Anagh Coar.

That charge alone would have been enough for the matter to be dealt with by the lower court with a maximum six month sentence.

However, the other offences and the fact they happened whilst on bail and in breach of a suspended sentence and a conditional discharge saw her sentenced by the Deemster.

The decision order says: “The learned Deemster formed the view that the starting point for the affray was one of 18 months’ custody and he then increased the sentence by six months in view of the aggravating factors.

“The Appellant contends that the sentence that was then imposed following the deduction for mitigating factors of 12 months’ custody was of itself excessive and made the overall sentence manifestly excessive.”

Excessive

Ms McKee’s advocate, Ian Kermode, argued that while the five consecutive rather than concurrent sentences handed down were “justified in principle, the final sentence was manifestly excessive”.

The Judge of Appeal Justice Anthony Cross and Acting Deemster Wild agreed, at least in part, with this argument saying if the only matter before the court had been affray, “we would most certainly have imposed a shorter sentence”.

However, the added that Deemster Cook was not only dealign with the affray, he was “had to deal with a woman who had a bad record and had committed offences on bail and in breach of court orders”.

They added: “Therefore, although the Deemster may have miscalculated the sentence for the affray we have no doubt that what he was looking at was the right sentence overall.”

As a result of this and other considerations, the appeal was rejected.