AN APPEAL by a man against his conviction and eight-year sentence for robbing a post office while on bail awaiting retrial on a murder charge will be heard by the Court of Criminal Appeal next week.
Ian Horgan (24), The Hermitage, Macroom, Co Cork, was found guilty by a jury at Cork Circuit Criminal Court in November 2007 of robbing Clondrohid post office near Macroom and stealing a car from outside the premises on September 6th, 2005. Horgan had denied the charges and has appealed Court of Criminal Appeal to the against his conviction and sentence.
When the matter was mentioned yesterday, Ms Justice Fidelma Macken was told the appeal was ready to proceed next week.
The robbery was committed while Horgan was on bail having successfully appealed against his earlier conviction for the murder of a young Cork woman, Rachel Kiely.
Ms Kiely (22), a beautician, was found strangled in undergrowth in a park near her home in Ballincollig in October 2000.
Horgan was 16 years of age at the time of that offence. He was convicted in 2002 of Ms Kiely's murder but that conviction was overturned in 2004. A retrial was ordered and Horgan was released on bail pending that.
In 2006, Horgan pleaded guilty to Ms Kiely's manslaughter and was also found guilty of her rape and he was sentenced at the Central Criminal Court by Mr Justice Barry White to eight years in jail, with six years suspended in light of the time he had already served.
In April 2007, the Court of Criminal Appeal substituted a 12-year sentence on both counts backdated to 2001 following a successful appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions against the leniency of the sentence.
Horgan has appealed against both his conviction and the severity of the eight-year sentence imposed by Judge Cornelius Murphy for the robbery.
The judge ordered that the eight years run consecutively to the term Horgan received for the rape and manslaughter of Ms Kiely because the offence was committed while he was out on bail.
