Dating app attacker could be released without supervision, judge warns

Eoin Reynolds

A judge has raised concerns that an offender who tried to murder a woman he met through a dating app when he was just 15 years old could be released from prison without supervision following a recent Supreme Court decision.

Mr Justice Paul McDermott was referring to the case of a now 23-year-old who pleaded guilty in 2019 to attempting to murder Stephanie Ng on December 23rd, 2017.

Having arranged to meet Ms Ng through an online dating app, where he pretended to be aged 19, the defendant lured his victim to an isolated area at the Sea Front, Queen's Road, Dún Laoghaire.

On the pretence that he wanted to take a selfie, he brought her to the waterfront where he grabbed her from behind, choked her to unconsciousness and slashed her neck with a knife.

The defendant, who cannot be named because he was a minor when he first came before the courts, was sentenced to eleven years with a review after five years. The Court of Appeal later found the five-year review to be unduly lenient and increased it by two years.

The defendant was due to have that review on Monday, but a recent ruling by the Supreme Court found that a sentencing court does not have jurisdiction to review its own sentences.

At the Central Criminal Court on Monday, Mr Justice McDermott said there is a "difficult and delicate background" to this case.

The mental health of the defendant is of "great concern", he said, and his parents will have the burden of looking after him through his difficulties. Without a review of the sentence, Mr Justice McDermott said the court cannot now impose a period of supervision post-release.

The case is one that "cries out for supervision", the judge said, and that was the reason the court sought various reports, including a psychiatric analysis of the defendant, ahead of the review. "That's not open to me any more," he said.

Lawyers for the Director of Public Prosecutions and for the defendant asked for the matter to be mentioned again on April 4th before the Central Criminal Court.

Mr Justice McDermott said he would list it for that date but added that he is "not departing from the ruling of the Supreme Court," who had determined that he has "no function" in relation to the sentence.