Former teacher resentenced over 'poison pen campaign' against three gardai

A former teacher from County Waterford who waged a four-year poison pen campaign against three gardai has been resentenced after the Court of Appeal ruled that the Circuit Court had been misinformed about the maximum penalty available. 

In resentencing Lee Hutchinson, Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy structured consecutive sentences with a portion suspended, meaning that the appellant will still serve a five-year jail term as previously ordered. 

Hutchinson, aged 41, of Coxtown West, Dunmore East, Co Waterford, was originally sentenced by Judge Eugene O’Kelly at Waterford Circuit Court to six years' imprisonment with the final year suspended for what was described as a “campaign of harassment” against three gardaí.  

Between May 1, 2014 and September 21, 2018, the former secondary school teacher sent anonymous handwritten letters containing spurious allegations about the officers to their families, colleagues and superiors.

In 2014 he sent a letter to then Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan, in which he anonymously accused the officers of misconduct, ranging from sexual impropriety, drug use and corruption.  

The claims of the letters were forwarded to Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission. The statutory body later deemed the claims as “unfounded”.  

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Hutchinson sent one letter directly to the wife of an officer in which he accused her husband of being corrupt, incompetent and unfaithful in their marriage, along with a litany of other unseemly acts. The letter was addressed to her place of work.  

Appealing the prison sentence at the Court of Appeal this Monday, defence counsel Gareth Hayden BL said that the headline sentence imposed was in excess of the maximum available, as it ought to have been in the midrange of seriousness.  

Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy pointed out that the offending took place over four years and involved three gardaí, with one particularly upsetting incident in which the wife of a garda found a letter on her desk at work which contained threats and an unpleasant reference to her children. She said that the offending may well have warranted consecutive sentences.  

Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy said that another aggravating factor was that the victims were gardaí, whose job it is to enforce the law and protect all members of society, with the offending imposing “very great strain” on them.   

Mr Hayden replied that there had been one course of action by the appellant replicated against three people and a wider circle of people involved, to which Ms Justice Kennedy said that as there were three victims, that in itself could warrant consecutive sentences. He suggested that the offending more properly belonged in the midrange, with a sentence of somewhere around three to four years more appropriate.  

Counsel for the DPP, Caroline Latham BL, said that while the appellant had entered a guilty plea, a psychiatric report indicated that he had talked of the difference between a legal wrong and moral wrong, so he had shown no acceptance of having committed a moral wrong. She also said that there was a lack of any sort of apology that showed his remorse.  

Ms Latham acknowledged that an incorrect headline sentence had been given to the sentencing judge, nevertheless, she said that the judge ruled that the offending was at the higher end.  

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In delivering the court’s judgement, Ms Justice Kennedy said the appellant had carried out “a campaign of harassment”, but she ruled that the sentencing judge had been misinformed that ten years was the maximum sentence when it was in fact seven years, so this constituted an error in principle.  

Quashing the original sentence and moving on to resentencing, she said the offending was in the midrange rather than the higher range, as the harassment was not persistent or daily, and there had been no following of any individual during the offending.   

She described the offending, however, as featuring “malicious, spurious and untrue allegations”, with the three victims targeted members of the gardaí. The targeting of the gardaí’s family members was deeply upsetting, she added, and there was no doubt that the harm done was a significant serious matter, as the impact extended beyond the immediate victims.  

Setting a headline sentence of four years on each count, after mitigation Ms Justice Kennedy reduced this to three years on each, but as there were three separate victims, she ruled that the sentences ought to be consecutive.  

Further reducing the three-year sentences to two years and four months on each count, Ms Justice Kennedy said this made a total of seven years in prison, with the final two years suspended for two years.