The Court of Appeal has refused a Director of Public Prosecutions application to review a sentence imposed on NM for rape, sexual assault and possession of child pornography, finding that the sentence was not so lenient as to amount to an error in principle.
The sentence was imposed in the Central Criminal Court on 8 February 2019. NM received an effective nine years in prison, with the final two years suspended, alongside lesser concurrent sentences. The appeal judgment, delivered on 3 February 2020, said the offending took place between September 2005 and September 2012 at addresses in Tallaght and Clondalkin, and once at an unknown address in Athy, County Kildare.
NM pleaded guilty to eight counts of rape under section 4: four involving oral rape and four involving anal rape. The complainant was seven or eight when the abuse began. The judgment records that the complainant described repeated abuse continuing until age 11 at one address, with a further incident in Athy in 2012. The Court of Appeal described the impact on the complainant as very severe.
The sentencing judge set a headline sentence of 14 years, then reduced it to nine years, suspending the final two years. The DPP accepted that 14 years was an appropriate headline sentence and that substantial mitigation was warranted, but argued that suspending part of the reduced term had no logical basis and made the sentence unduly lenient. NM’s counsel urged the appeal court not to interfere with what was described as a carefully structured sentence.
The appeal court acknowledged that the sentence was lenient, possibly at the outer limits of leniency. It noted the sentencing judge’s stated aim of ensuring participation in treatment and probation supervision, and concluded that the sentencing approach was not impermissible. The court refused the DPP’s review application. The sentence therefore remained in place.