Rapist foster father has sentence cut after comments on sentence remission

Richard Moloney, a foster father from County Tipperary, has had his twelve-year prison sentence reduced to ten-and-a-half years following an appeal court decision that identified a sentencing error at Dublin's Central Criminal Court. The Court of Appeal determined in October 2020 that the trial judge's remarks at the time of sentencing in November 2019 suggested consideration of potential early release when setting the headline custodial term, a departure from established sentencing principles. Moloney was convicted in July 2019 of rape, oral rape, and sexual assault against his then sixteen-year-old foster daughter, offences committed at their home in July 2016. He was acquitted of a separate charge of anal rape. The jury's selective rejection of the anal rape allegation while convicting on the other counts demonstrated its careful consideration of the evidence presented. During his appeal, Moloney's legal team challenged the convictions themselves, arguing that the trial judge's instructions to the jury created an unduly restrictive framework for their deliberations. The prosecution successfully defended the conviction, submitting that the judge had correctly explained the burden of proof and that the jury's verdicts demonstrated appropriate discernment in assessing the evidence. The appeal court found no error in the trial judge's directions and rejected the challenge to conviction. The sentencing appeal succeeded on narrower grounds. The appellate judges concluded that remarks suggesting the sentencing judge was factoring potential remission into his calculation of the appropriate sentence had led to an inflated headline term. By reducing the sentence by eighteen months, the court corrected what it found to be a principled error in approach, while maintaining the custodial consequence of Moloney's serious breach of trust as a foster parent. A four-year post-release supervision order with conditions including distance from the victim remained in place.