Ms Justice Iseult O’Malley gave the judgments in the separate cases of DPP v CC & anor [2025] IESC 11 and DPP v PB [2025] IESC 12 yesterday.

Both cases involved appellants who are now adults, but had been convicted of murder when they were under the age of 18.

In CC, the appellant had received a life sentence after being convicted of a murder committed in 2021, when he was just 14 years old. The trial judge, when imposing the sentence, scheduled a review by the court after a period of 13 years.

The trial judge had intended this review to allow consideration of his rehabilitation and possible release, in line with principles of juvenile justice. However, the Supreme Court found that no legal basis existed for such a review mechanism.

Ms Justice O’Malley observed: “A sentencing court does not have jurisdiction to reserve for itself a power to review a sentence. The power under the Children Act 1908 to review the detention of a child convicted of murder no longer exists.”

She said this “does not mean that the appellant’s current detention is any way unlawful but the inclusion in the sentence order of a future review amounts to an error in principle which should be corrected by an appellate court”.

The judge also found that life sentences “should be imposed on a child only in exceptional cases where the evidence shows that the child’s intentions and actions can fairly be equated with those of an adult”.

She allowed the appeal against sentence and invited submissions from the parties as to the appropriate final order.

Her provisional view was that the case should be remitted to the Court of Appeal for the imposition of a sentence “in accordance with the principles outlined in this judgment”.

In the separate case of PB, the appellant was a man convicted of and sentenced for murder in 2020, shortly before his 18th birthday.

He had brought an unsuccessful appeal to the severity of the sentence to the Court of Appeal, but as he had turned 18 since his conviction, he was held to be no longer entitled to automatic lifelong anonymity under section 93 of the Children Act 2001.

He successfully challenged this, with Ms Justice O’Malley ruling that s.93 should be interpreted as providing anonymity protection throughout the legal process, including appeals, including where the child reaches adulthood during the proceedings.

The appellant had also received a life sentence with a court review in 2033, which the court held could not now take place as scheduled as a result of the ruling in CC.

Ms Justice O’Malley said that “where the sentenced persons may be out of time for the bringing of an appeal in the ordinary manner, those sentenced persons ought to be given an opportunity to bring their cases back before the courts for the purpose of seeking a sentence in accordance with the principles outlined in CC”.

The parties in PB have been given time to consider the judgment in CC.