Paul Neilan
A Wexford arsonist who went on a Christmas crime spree, setting fire to three cars and an auto body garage, destroying the owner's livelihood, has had his three and a half-year jail sentence increased to nine years by the Court of Appeal.
Graham Shannon (34), who has 82 previous convictions, had set the "revenge" fires in return for money from a third party.
In February at Wexford Circuit Criminal Court, Shannon, with an address at Carrigbyrne, New Ross, pleaded guilty to four counts of criminal damage at The Brambles, Old Ross, on Christmas Eve 2018, at Cassagh on the same date and criminal damage at Furlong’s Auto Body Repair Shop in Ballywilliam on St Stephen’s Day 2018.
The State applied to the Court of Appeal to review the sentences on grounds that they were unduly lenient and that Shannon's punishment should have featured consecutive sentences regarding the four charges of criminal damage by arson.
At the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy said the damage to the garage had “destroyed” the livelihood of the owner in causing over €220,000 damage to the premises.
The garage parts owner could not receive full payment from his insurance company because it involved a deliberate act on behalf of Shannon.
Ms Justice Kennedy, in an ex-tempore judgment on Tuesday, said all four of the original sentences had been made concurrent to each other and took into account Shannon’s background and personal circumstances in reaching a cumulative sentence of three-and-a-half years, which, she said, “the DPP found simply too low and without any consecutive basis applied”.
Ms Justice Kennedy noted jail sentences for arson were 15 years-plus in egregious cases. On the first three cases that involved the arson of vehicles, a sentence of two years was imposed on each.
On the fourth sentence for the burning down of the garage, Ms Justice Kennedy said a sentence of four years with six months suspended had been imposed.
Ms Justice Kennedy said there had been a “serious motivation” for the first three arsons in that Shannon carried out the acts for financial gain of €200 from a third party. Shannon had taken the money to pay back a loan for a car amounting to €450.
Ms Justice Kennedy said there had been a “personal” element to the arsons in that they involved people who had made complaints to gardaí about the third party who paid Shannon.
The judge said that Shannon himself had introduced the idea of arson in damaging the cars for the third individual and had texted him after the arsons that “things went so nicely”.
'Revenge' element
Ms Justice Kennedy said there was a “revenge” element to the offending in the burning down of the garage and that gas cannisters present at the scene had “exploded”. “The impact was profound and caused financial loss,” said Ms Justice Kennedy, who added that “the victim lost his business and that caused devastation for his family”.
Ms Justice Kennedy said the court would allow the State’s appeal, quash the original sentence and re-sentence Shannon.
The judge said each of the four counts was “simply too low and substantially unduly lenient”.
On the three counts of arson relating to the vehicles, Ms Justice Kennedy said the incidents came about “by complaints made to gardaí” and that Shannon had shown a “clear disrespect to law and order and even expressed satisfaction and self-congratulation” in his texts to the third individual.
Ms Justice Kennedy identified six years’ imprisonment as a headline sentence for the first three arson offences but found that the burning of the garage was elevated over these through the “gravity” of that offence and the “element of revenge” on a person carrying out their job who subsequently lost his work premises.
Headline sentence
Ms Justice Kennedy said eight years’ imprisonment was an appropriate headline sentence for the burning of the garage.
In taking into account Shannon’s guilty plea and remorse, Ms Justice Kennedy reduced the first three arson sentences to four years’ imprisonment to run concurrently to each other.
Ms Justice Kennedy reduced the sentence for the burning of the garage from eight down to six years but then made that consecutive to the first three sentences, leaving a ten-year sentence for Shannon to serve.
She then suspended the final year of the sentence in the interests of Shannon’s rehabilitation and backdated it to April 7th, 2022.
At the trial, Detective Garda Edward Barry said Siobhan Delaney was at home on the night of December 23rd, 2018, when the sensor light went off in her garden.
Ms Delaney’s partner came to stay with her until 2am. Shortly after he left she heard a bang and saw her car was on fire.
Sgt Barry said the car – which was only a few months old – was a “total write off”.
The trial heard that such was the heat from the car fire that it smashed the glass around the back window and door of the house.
The total loss she suffered was approximately €35,000 between the car being written off and damage to the house.
Phone data
Dylan Redmond BL, prosecuting, said during the investigation gardaí retrieved phone data including communications between Shannon and the third party. “The third party discharged Mr Shannon to carry out this task and nominated an amount of money that would be credited.”
He said the man was a friend of the defendant’s. Det Barry said two cars, a 2011 Toyota Land Cruiser worth €19,000 and a 152 Ford Focus valued at €21,000 were then destroyed in an arson attack in Cassagh.
Two days later Shannon visited Furlong’s garage in Ballywilliam, armed with a can of petrol.
Det Barry said €229,600 in damage was caused to the garage on St Stephen’s Day morning.
Det Barry said gas bottles used for welding, located inside the garage, exploded.
Mr Redmond said the third party had indicated to Shannon that if he “sorted a few cars there would be a few quid in it for him”.
The court heard that Shannon had difficulties with drink and drugs.
He has 82 previous convictions, more than half of which are for motoring offences. He has two threat to kill convictions, along with one for the intimidation of a witness, a drugs offence conviction and one for a single crime of a sexual nature.
Three of the convictions were for criminal damage, and he threatened to burn down a garda’s house and put nails in a plank which burst a garda patrol car’s tyres. He also slashed an off-duty Garda’s car tyres and scraped all of the panels.
The court heard Shannon also threatened to kill two gardaí in December 2019 and posted the registration number of one of the guard’s cars on Facebook looking for his address.
