A Dublin priest serving a six-year jail sentence for abusing altar boys was refused leave by the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday to bring an appeal to the Supreme Court.
The six-year sentence was imposed on Ivan Payne last July after the Court of Criminal Appeal agreed with the Director of Public Prosecutions that his original sentence - two years in jail - was unduly lenient.
In June 1998, when his case was before Dublin Circuit Criminal Court, Payne, with an address care of the Dublin archdiocese, pleaded guilty to several counts of indecent assault.
He was given a six-year sentence by former Judge Cyril Kelly but the final four years were suspended on condition that he enter a rehabilitative process with the Granada Institute, which had offered him treatment.
When granting the DPP's appeal against "undue leniency" of sentence, the Court of Criminal Appeal ruled that the suspended part of the sentence should be served.
Yesterday, the court dismissed an application by Payne to refer the case to the Supreme Court .
Giving the court's judgment, Mr Justice Barron, sitting with Mr Justice Barr and Mr Justice O'Sullivan, said that since the decision in the Payne case last July, a decision had been delivered by Ms Justice Denham in another case stating that the court had jurisdiction to suspend the latter part of a sentence on conditions set out in a programme of release. However, the court had adjourned a decision on whether it should suspend part of the sentence in order to enable Payne to adduce further evidence.
Mr Justice Barron said counsel for Payne now applied for a certificate under Section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993, stating that the determination of the appeal court in his case involved a point of law of exceptional public importance and that it was desirable in the public interest that an appeal should be taken to the Supreme Court. The judge said Payne sought to raise two questions in the Supreme Court.
The first asked whether a court, when considering the appropriate sentence for sex offences, should take into account the rehabilitation of the accused and, in particular, the availability in custody or otherwise of treatment that could facilitate rehabilitation and the protection of society in general.
The second question asked whether the Court of Criminal Appeal, in reviewing a sentence under Section 2 of the Act and imposing on the convicted person a sentence it considered appropriate, should take into account that there was mitigation in the sense that the offender had to face the prospect of being sentenced twice over.
Mr Justice Barron said the court had decided there was no reason for acceding to Payne's request to refer the matter to the Supreme Court. There was already a ruling of the Court of Criminal Appeal in accordance with Ms Justice Denham's finding that the court had jurisdiction to suspend a sentence in accordance with the programme of release.
The power of the court to suspend a sentence to enable an offender to obtain treatment for rehabilitation was not an issue at the hearing of the appeal, Mr Justice Barron said. Such a provision had been made by the trial court. The appeal court had decided that such a programme of release was not appropriate in the circumstances.