Dubliner Paul Ward, whose conviction for the murder of journalist Veronica Guerin was overturned earlier this year but who remains jailed for his role in the 1997 Mountjoy prison siege, may be freed in two years following a decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday.
The three judge court reduced from 12 to 10 years the sentence imposed on Ward over the riot and backdated the sentence to November 1997, when he was arrested and charged in relation to it. The original sentence dated from July 1999 and Ward's lawyers had argued this effectively imposed a 15-year sentence on Ward for the siege.
The effect of yesterday's decision means that Ward, if granted normal remission, could be released in two years.
While reducing the sentence, the court rejected arguments that Ward's role in the riot was lesser than some of his co-accused. Ward had threatened to hang prison officers and also threatened them with a syringe filled with infected blood. "He set out to cause terror and did so," Mr Justice Hardiman said.
However, it accepted the trial judge had taken into account when determining sentence Ward's murder conviction - which was quashed last March - and that this fact, although no fault of the trial judge's, had led to an error in principle. On this ground, the court reduced the sentence.
While accepting there was a disparity between Ward's 12-year sentence and that of some of his co-accused, who had received terms ranging from two to 10 years, the court held the trial judge, given Ward's actions during the siege, was entitled to impose the 12-year sentence on Ward and rejected that ground of appeal. There was no doubt the 12-year sentence could be justified on that ground.
It noted that a co-accused who was jailed for two years was adjudged to have been the only stable influence during the siege and this constituted justification for the disparity between his sentence and Ward's, if any justification was needed.
Ward (38), from Windmill Road, Crumlin, had pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to falsely imprisoning a prison officer during the siege which lasted from January 4th to 6th, 1997. Five prison officers were taken hostage by a number of prisoners on January 4th, 1997 after an attempt to mount a rooftop protest over conditions at the jail failed. No physical injuries were sustained by prison officers but they were said to have been subjected to psychological terror from which, the trial judge said, they might never recover.
Giving the court's decision yesterday on Ward's appeal against severity of sentence, Mr Justice Hardiman, presiding, and sitting with Ms Justice Carroll and Mr Justice Peart, noted that Ward was on remand on a charge of murdering Veronica Guerin at the time of the siege. He had been convicted of that "notorious murder" when he was sentenced in July 1999 on the charge of unlawful imprisonment.
When sentencing Ward in relation to the riots, the trial judge had to regard Ward as being guilty of murder, Mr Justice Hardiman said.
