THE Justice Minister has been asked to intervene in the sentencing row involving fraudulent Downpatrick travel agent Kathy Ward.
David Ford has been tasked with examining the case by South Down MP Margaret Ritchie after the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) announced this week that it had no power to send it to the Court of Appeal.
Ward (40) walked free from Downpatrick Crown Court earlier this month with a two year suspended sentence after admitting 80 fraud, forgery and theft charges involving £110,000. Her co-accused William Mark McConkey (47) received a one-year suspended sentence for a lesser role in the affair.
Ward’s serious thyroid condition, which the judge said impacted on her behaviour, her plea of guilty, and the handing in of over £29,000 to the court, led to a suspended sentence for the massive fraud, despite a previous theft conviction.
Some of the 60 victims immediately denounced the sentence as being too lenient, and they, along with Miss Ritchie, wrote to PPS asking for an appeal.
In a written response this week, the Director of the PPS, Barra McGrory, said that under the 1988 Criminal Justice Act he did not have the power to consider if the judge was unduly lenient.
Current PPS appeal guidance does state that only serious offences which can usually only be dealt with by the Crown Court, such as murder, rape and causing death by dangerous driving, can be appealed. However, “certain serious frauds” are among those the PPS consider suitable.
Miss Ritchie said she was frustrated by the limitations of the current legislation but was determined to pursue the issue.
“I have made urgent representations in writing to Justice Minister David Ford,” she said. “I am asking him to examine the widespread belief that the sentence is not of a level and a gravity that reflects the seriousness of the offences carried out.”
Miss Ritchie said the Department of Justice was currently undertaking a review of the types of sentences that could be appealed. She said she was backing this endeavour but also asking for intervention in this particular case.
Mrs. Lenore Rea, one of Ward’s many victims, has been among those lobbying the MP for action.
“That we cannot appeal seems to be all wrong,” she said. “It is just beyond belief.
“There was never any chance of custody in this case. They pleaded guilty to get off.
“I am sure there are other people go through things like this and you never hear about it, it is just that there are so many of us.
“The police have to go totally by the law. It is only the ordinary people like us who can question these things and shout about them.”
Mrs. Rea, who remains troubled by many aspects of the case, said she feared not all the Newcastle couple’s victims would get all their money back.
She also argued that too much credit was given to Ward for “saving the court time” by pleading guilty and to the medical condition which the judge accepted impaired her judgement.
“What he [co-accused Mark McConkey] did is totally gross — what was wrong with him? Just because it wasn’t as much as what she did it seems to be totally disregarded.
“We have been failed I think.”
A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said they had received Miss Ritchie’s letter and it was under consideration.
“Referral of a sentence by the Director of Public Prosecution to the Court of Appeal on the grounds of undue leniency is available for all offences triable only on indictment, that is, those that can be tried only in the Crown Court,” she said. “It is also available for a limited number of cases that can be tried either in a Magistrate’s Court or the Crown Court, known as hybrid offences, that have been specifically listed in statute. That list is limited to more serious hybrid offences, for example serious sexual offences are included.
“The Department is currently undertaking an exercise to consider the ambit of the scheme.”