DPP to appeal leniency of Pearse Mc Auley sentence

The DPP is due to appeal the sentence handed down to Garda killer Pearse McAuley for beating and stabbing his wife in Cavan.
The 51-year-old Strabane native, who was convicted of Garda Jerry McCabe’s manslaughter in 1999, is almost two years into an eight year sentence for the attack.
Pearse McAuley and Pauline Tully married in 2003 but went their separate ways in Feb 2014.
On Christmas Eve that year, he’d arranged to see their children at her family home. He showed up drunk at 11 o’clock in the morning and subjected her to a vicious two and a half hour attack in front of their boys – who were just 5 and 7 at the time.
She somehow managed to escape and raise the alarm.
McAuley is no stranger to prison. In 1999, he was jailed for his part in the killing of Detective Jerry McCabe, who was shot dead in Limerick three years beforehand.
Last December, he was jailed for eight years for the attack on his wife, but the DPP believes that was too lenient and is due to appeal it later this morning.