The Court of Appeal set aside a seven-and-a-half-year sentence imposed on Ron Tulie for four offences of defiling a girl under 17, finding that the sentencing judge had used the wrong statutory maximum. It substituted a four-year sentence, with the final two years suspended on conditions.
Tulie had pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in July 2015 to four counts under section 3(1)(b) of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 2006. In November 2015, he was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison, with the final two years suspended for four years after his release.
The Court of Appeal said the offences occurred in 2008. The girl first met Tulie while taking part in a school first aid and fire safety course he ran with a colleague. After the course ended in 2007, they began communicating by email. In 2008, she went for a drive alone with him to the Dublin Mountains, where the first offence occurred. The court said the last of the four offences was committed the day before her 17th birthday.
The appeal concerned sentence. The court said the maximum penalty was five years unless the offender was a “person in authority” at the time of the sexual act, in which case the maximum was 10 years. During the Circuit Court sentencing hearing, the prosecution said Tulie came within that definition; defence counsel agreed he had been invited to the school by staff. The Court of Appeal observed that the indictment did not allege he was a person in authority and concluded he was not responsible for the girl’s education, supervision or welfare when the offences took place. It found the sentencing judge had sentenced by reference to the incorrect maximum and imposed a term above the statutory limit.
The appeal court said the error required it to intervene and resentence Tulie. It described the offending as at the upper end of the scale, citing the circumstances in which he met the girl, the age difference, her vulnerability and the serious impact on her. It set a four-year term as the appropriate starting point, while taking account of his early guilty plea, previous good character, career in the Dublin Fire Brigade and progress in prison, including completed courses and engagement with the prison psychology service.
The court substituted four years’ imprisonment, suspending the final two years on condition that Tulie enter a bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for two years after release. It also noted that he remained on the sex offenders register.