Court of Appeal finds foster brother rape sentence too lenient but orders no return to prison

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

The Court of Appeal found that a sentence imposed on a man for repeatedly raping his foster brother was unduly lenient, but ruled that returning him to prison after his release would be unjust. Ms Justice Tara Burns delivered the three-judge court’s judgment on 10 July 2023.

At the Central Criminal Court, the man contested four counts of oral rape and 12 sexual assault charges involving two foster brothers. He pleaded not guilty to all charges. The proceedings were reported on 10 July 2023. A jury convicted him of four counts of oral rape and seven sexual assaults against the younger boy, and four sexual assaults against the older boy. The jury disagreed on one sexual assault charge. The man accepted the verdicts.

The charges concerned dates between May 1995 and December 1998. The man was aged between 15 and 18 during the offending. The younger victim was aged between 11 and 14, while his older brother was aged between 12 and 13 when he was assaulted in 1995 and 1996.

Trial judge Ms Justice Deirdre Murphy imposed four years’ imprisonment for the oral rapes and 18 months for each group of sexual assaults. The sentences ran concurrently, with the final two years and six months suspended for two years and six months. The sentence was backdated to November 2021, when the man entered custody, and he was released in December 2022.

The State argued that the sentences were unduly lenient. The appeal court found that the appropriate headline sentence for the rapes was six years, reduced by two years for mitigation. It quashed the original rape sentence and imposed four years, suspending the remaining time to be served for two and a half years. It also imposed an 18-month term for the sexual assaults.

The court said that returning the man to prison would be an additional punishment and unjust. It noted that he had undertaken courses since his release and was attempting to regain employment and reintegrate into society.