A Co Laois man serving a 10-year sentence for serious child-sexual abuse has been released by the Central Criminal Court after serving five years.
He had been jailed in 1997 by now-retired Mr Justice Feargus Flood with a sentence review set for a date after five years had ben served.
Mr Justice Paul Carney said sentence reviews were used by the majority of judges some years but that he felt a judge should be completely detached from a case after sentencing.
He said the Supreme Court had recently issued a judgment that agreed with him and had now outlawed sentence reviews.
He added, however, that the defendant in this case had been promised a sentence review after five years and it would be unfair to him now to say that "reviews were gone".
Mr Justice Carney ordered the balance of the sentence be suspended on the condition that the defendant keep the peace for five years, remain out of areas specified by the court unless three days' notice was given to the gardaí and had no unsupervised access to children.