FORMER disc jockey Vincent Connell walked free from the Central Criminal Court yesterday after sentences totalling 12 years for assaults on four former girlfriends were suspended.
Mr Justice Budd said he would suspend the 12 year sentence of penal servitude on condition that Connell enter into a £500 bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour towards all the people of Ireland, particularly his four victims.
Connell gave the undertaking and also undertook not to make contact with the four women or their families, and not to frequent the locations where they live.
Connell (45), of Neagh Road Terenure, Dublin, admitted four charges of assault occasioning actual bodily harm to the four women between 1978 and 1989.
The first count related to an assault on Ms Gillian Kane who was then Connell's fiancee, in Dublin on December 27th 1978. Count two concerned an assault on Ms Mary Creedon, who was Connell's fiancee at that time, between the months of April and September 1982. The third related to an assault on Ms Agnes Long in Dun Laoghaire in or about May 1981.
The fourth assault was on Ms Barbara Rooney at a flat she was then sharing with Connell in Fairview, Dublin, in November 1989.
Mr Dennis Vaughan Buckley SC, prosecuting, entered a nolle prosequi on four other counts, including one of attempted murder, two of arson and one of common assault.
In April last year the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed Connell's conviction for the murder of Patricia Furlong (21), of Mulvey Park, Dundrum, Dublin, during the Fraughan Festival in Glencullen, Co Dublin, in July 1982.
Pronouncing sentence in relation to the four assault charges yesterday, Mr Justice Budd said he would take into account in Connell's favour that he had no previous convictions and had pleaded guilty and spared his victims a lengthy trial and the burden of giving evidence.
He was also taking into account that Connell had expressed remorse and apologised to each of his victims, and that he had spent five years and one month in custody and had been on a restricted bail regime from June 1995 until the court hearing.
He said Connell had held down employment for most of his life, appeared very articulate and personable, dressed well and was well able to present himself.
It was clear that Connell had a capacity to cause fear in other persons, in particular women with whom he was friendly. He noted that Det Sgt Gerry O'Carroll had said he had never in his 30 years as a garda seen such "primeval fear" of another human being as iii the fear displayed by his four victims towards Connell.
The judge said there was a paucity of explanation for Connell's crimes, and an absence of suggested mitigating factors.
There was a need both to deter Connell from committing further crimes and to give him the opportunity to develop self control and rehabilitate himself.
Taking all those factors into account he was imposing a sentence of four years' penal servitude in respect of the assaults on Ms Kane and Ms Creedon, to run concurrently.
In respect of the assaults on Ms Long and on Ms Rooney, he was imposing sentences of four years penal servitude to run consecutively.
He said that after the first assaults, Connell had the cation and intellect to be aware the need to control his vicious propensities, but had gone on commit the third and fourth assaults.
The judge said Connell must be credit for the time he had served in custody.
In that regard he was suspending all four sentences on condition that Connell enter into a bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for 12 years, and keep away from his four victims and their families.
If Connell broke the bond, then the suspension would be lifted, the judge said. This gave Connell "a strong impetus" to be exceedingly mindful of his behaviour in the future.
He refused a defence request for leave to appeal against severity of sentence.
Mr Justice Budd said he accepted the evidence of Det Sgt Gerard McDonnell that each of the victims was absolutely terrified of Connell.
He also accepted the defence case that their fear emanated from their entire contact with Connell during their relationships with him, and not solely from the incidents concerned.
Earlier, appealing for leniency of sentence, Mr Barry White SC, defending, said Connell had no previous convictions, had apologised to all of his victims and was deeply ashamed of his conduct towards them.
He felt that when a person had spent more than five years in custody, as Connell had, there had to have been rehabilitation.
He said Connell had paid his debt to society. He had come before the court at the age of 45, with no previous convictions and pleaded guilty to charges which dated back some considerable years.
The incidents had happened when Connell was in his 20s and drink was involved, counsel added. Since the charges were first brought, Connell had also never attempted to go near his victims.
He was anxious to leave the jurisdiction and this would assuage their fears.
Mr White said it was clear from the victim impact statements that whatever effect Connell had had on his four victims, the effect was not related to the incidents alone, but was an overall feeling generated by the women's entire relationship with Connell.