A violent offender who beat his partner so badly he checked to see if she was still breathing afterwards and later threatened to cut her throat and eat her liver has had two years added to his jail term, after an appeal by the State.

Ian Doyle (34) of Cashel Avenue, Crumlin, who was on bail at the time for assaulting a different partner, did not let the woman leave the house for nearly a week following a series of attacks in her home in February 2023.

Her four-year-old daughter was asleep upstairs at the time of this first assault. The woman needed medical attention, but Doyle refused to let her leave the house and instead supplied her with paper stitches and painkillers, which he had bought at a nearby pharmacy.

Doyle pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to assaulting the woman causing her harm and threatening to kill or cause serious harm on dates in February 2023. Charges of assault causing harm and false imprisonment were taken into consideration. Last November, Judge Orla Crowe set a headline sentence of five years. She reduced this to three years and six months, with the final six months suspended. She said the sentence would run consecutive to the term Doyle is already serving for assaulting a different partner, which is due to expire in April 2026.

Today, the Court of Appeal concluded that the sentence imposed was too lenient and resentenced Doyle to five years’ imprisonment in respect of the two counts, to run concurrently with each other.

Mr Justice Owens said the sentences will be consecutive to the term Doyle is serving for another matter. He said the court was obliged to impose consecutive sentences because the index offences were committed while he was on bail. The judge said a headline sentence of seven years in custody was appropriate “to reflect the overall gravity” of the offending.

Patricia McLaughlin SC, for the DPP, said at the launch of the appeal last month that Doyle had threatened to kill the victim “in the most graphic terms”. She argued the sentencing judge was wrong to nominate the assault charge – which carries a maximum sentence of five years – as the primary or gauge offence for the purposes of sentencing rather than the threat to kill offence, which has a maximum sentence of 10 years.

Counsel contended the sentence imposed represented a gross departure from the norm. She said after gardaí conducted a check at the woman’s house on Saturday, February 18th, Doyle commenced a “vicious attack” on the victim while her four-year-old child slept upstairs. She said the victim had described in “vivid” detail how Doyle had been frothing at the mouth and had “booted” her across the room, leaving her with bruising all over her body. She said the victim “thought she was going to be killed” during this assault and was also concerned for her child.

Ms McLaughlin said Doyle himself thought he had killed the victim, noting this was “an extremely serious assault” in which the victim had lost consciousness.

Doyle committed a further “very serious assault” on the Wednesday, in which he pushed and kicked the victim down the stairs, counsel said, and the threat to kill was made the following day.

She argued the sentencing judge made an error by failing to adequately reflect the many aggravating factors of the case in the sentence imposed.