A man jailed for nine years for the manslaughter of two youths in Cork has had his sentence reduced to five years by the Court of Criminal Appeal. Trevor O'Connell and Stephen Kirby, both 17, died after being struck by a stolen car driven by David Todd.
Todd (21) had pleaded guilty at Cork Circuit Court to unlawfully killing Trevor O'Connell on March 17th 1997. He also admitted the manslaughter of Stephen Kirby, who died three days later.
Mr Justice Hardiman said that, without taking away from the "ghastly" nature of what had occurred, the court felt constrained to reduce the sentence to five years. It made the court's decision easier to understand if he said something about the principles it proposed to apply. The Supreme Court had expressly declined to lay down anything in the nature of a tariff for any form of crime on the basis that neither the individual crimes nor the perpetrators were similar. All driving cases were distinct from other cases in that they were not "crimes of intention".