Man who falsely imprisoned girl (11) has jail term reduced

A man jailed for falsely imprisoning an 11-year-old girl he “lifted” from a green area next to her home has had his jail term reduced by two years.

Michael Martin (37), who lived at Shandon Court, Yellow Road, Waterford City at the time, pleaded guilty to false imprisonment of the girl along the roadside near Oldtown, Cullohill, Co Laois on March 4th, 2015.

He was sentenced at Portloaise Circuit Criminal Court to 17 years imprisonment with the final four suspended by Judge Keenan Johnson on November 5th, 2015.

Martin successfully appealed his sentence on Thursday with the Court of Appeal hodling that it was “excessive in all the circumstances”. He was accordingly resentenced to 14 years imprisonment with the final three suspended for five years.

Giving judgment in the three-judge court, Mr Justice Alan Mahon said three young siblings were playing on a green area next to their family home on the outskirts of a village when Martin arrived in a silver Nissan vehicle.

Martin initially asked for directions before exiting the vehicle and approaching a girl and picking her up off the ground and placing her in the vehicle.

“The girl’s quick thinking 10-year-old brother ran towards the vehicle and grabbed hold of the driver’s door and attempted to open the door,” Mr Justice Mahon said.

Martin then proceeded to drive away “with the boy still holding the driver’s door”.

‘Brave efforts’

While Martin’s attention was distracted by the boy’s “brave efforts to open the door”, his sister opened the passenger door and got out. The children then ran home and told their father.

Eventually, the vehicle was tracked to Castlecomer, Co Kilkenny and Martin was arrested. He admitted stealing the Nissan but denied any involvement in the offence initially.

He was identified as the driver of the vehicle at an identification parade but continued to deny involvement. His fingerprints were found in the car as well as fibres matching the girl’s clothing.

He had been on bail at the time of the offence in respect of an earlier robbery.

A moving victim impact statement was provided to the sentencing court in which the victims father emphasised that his daughters innocence had been stolen and she had lost her confidence.

The sentencing judge picked 20 years as the headline tariff before mitigating it to 17.

In total, Martin had 92 previous convictions including one for sexual assault and one for abducting a 14-year-old girl. In mitigation, he had pleaded guilty, he had difficult psychological background and had tendered a letter of apology.

Martin had poor education, problems with relationships, sexual and physical victimisation and mental health problems. “His general cognitive ability was assessed as being in the extremely low range of intellectual functioning”.