SENTENCING STATEMENTS
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HMA v Patrick Keenan and Patrick Mooney
Jun 6, 2022
On sentencing, Lord Arthurson made the following statement in court:
"Patrick Keenan and Patrick Mooney, at a continued preliminary hearing at Glasgow High Court on 28 April 2022 you each tendered pleas of guilty on indictment to two charges of abduction, assault and robbery.
These crimes, which were violent, targeted, concerted and obviously carefully planned in their nature, involved the masking by you of your faces with balaclavas, the forcing of entry into the domestic homes of persons, including children, unknown to you, and the use by you of a variety of weapons, namely a spade, a metal pole and a baseball bat.
Your victims in charge 2 were children aged 8 and 12 respectively and in respect of charge 3 you attacked and made threats to kill the family involved. The sums taken from each home were not substantial but that is perhaps beside the point in consideration of the sheer gravity of these offences. This course of appalling criminal conduct, which represents a very considerable escalation in respect of your already concerning criminal records, will inevitably result today in the imposition by this Court of substantial custodial sentences for both of you.
Patrick Keenan, you are aged 23 and were aged 22 when these crimes were committed by you. You have to date accrued 11 groups of previous convictions up to and including Crown Court level and most recently in 2019 you received a consecutive sentence of 30 months detention for offences including burglary and theft. You committed the index offences while you were subject to an unexpired portion of that sentence and you were subject to recall in respect of that disposal on 11 March 2021, but I am advised that, unusually, you did not at any time appear in court in respect of any recall warrant. Also, in 2019 you were convicted in respect of possession of an offensive weapon, namely an extendable metal baton.
Patrick Mooney, you are aged 41 and were aged 39 when these crimes were committed by you. You have to date accrued 21 groups of previous convictions in various jurisdictions, again up to and including Crown Court level. You have convictions for burglary dating back to 2001 and in 2013 you were convicted of burglary and theft. In 2005 you were convicted in respect of possession of a knife.
I have listened carefully to the submissions advanced in mitigation this morning on your behalf by your respective counsel and propose to take all that has been said by them into account in selecting a suitable custodial tariff for each of you. I note in particular what has been said about your personal and family backgrounds, the remorse expressed by each of you, and, in the context of any allowable discount, the disclosure issues which prevented an earlier resolution of this case. In terms of comparative justice, in the whole circumstances I see no particularly obvious differential to apply between you other than Mr Mooney’s relatively young age at the date of the index offending, which I will require to take into account in the course of the present sentencing exercise.
Criminal justice social work reports have been made available for the purposes of this morning’s hearing. These make for rather grim reading. Mr Keenan, you have offended consistently from the age of 16 without significant interruption. You told the author of your report that you were smoking cannabis regularly in the lead up to and throughout the index offences. You have been assessed as presenting a high level of risk to the public. There are currently no protective factors in respect of you. Mr Mooney, you have accepted your responsibility in the planning and carrying out of these offences. There are no known protective factors in respect of you also. You have an entrenched pattern of offending, albeit there have been some gaps in your offending record. It would appear that you to, as I read your report, present a high level of risk to the public.
Turning finally then to disposal, Mr Keenan, you will serve on charges 2 and 3 on this indictment, on an in cumulo basis, an extended sentence of 9 years and 9 months duration, comprising a custodial part of 6 years and 9 months, which period I have discounted due to the timing of your plea of guilty from a period of 9 years, with an extension period in the community of 3 years.
Mr Mooney, you will serve on charges 2 and 3, again on an in cumulo basis, an extended sentence of 10 years and 6 months duration, comprising a custodial part of 7 years and 6 months, which period I have discounted due to the timing of your plea from a period of 10 years, with an extension period of 3 years.
The sentencing purposes of these disposals are first, in respect of the custodial parts, punishment and deterrence, and second, in respect of the extension periods, rehabilitation, with an overarching sentencing purpose of public protection.
I have selected these disposals on the basis that I have concluded in the whole circumstances that you each present a high risk of serious harm from which it is necessary to protect the public, and that the normal licence arrangements would not suffice to protect the public from the risk which each of you would present on your release from the custodial parts of your sentences.
During the extension period component of these disposals, you will each be on licence and under supervision. The conditions of your licences will be fixed by Scottish Ministers. If during the extension period you fail to comply with these conditions, your licence will be revoked and you may be returned to custody for a further period in respect of this indictment. The Court also has power to deal with you if you commit another offence after your release while you are on licence. It is very much to be hoped, however, that this extension period will substantially contribute in respect of both of you to your successful re-integration in due course into the community.
For completeness, with regard to the backdating of these sentences, I have been provided with information concerning the procedural history of each of you in respect of this indictment. In your case Patrick Keenan your sentence will be backdated to 11 March 2021 and in your case Patrick Mooney your sentence will be backdated to 4 May 2021."
6 June 2022