The Court of Appeal has quashed the sentences imposed on J.M. for five sexual assaults against his granddaughter and resentenced him to nine years’ imprisonment on each count, to run concurrently. The sentences are to be backdated to the date he first went into prison in respect of the offending.
The court gave judgment on 2 May 2025 on an application by the Director of Public Prosecutions under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993, which allows review of a sentence alleged to be unduly lenient. The DPP argued that the original sentences gave too little weight to the seriousness of the offending and general deterrence, and too much to mitigation.
J.M. was convicted by a jury in June 2022 of five sexual assaults. The offences occurred when the complainant was aged between six and 13. The trial evidence, as summarised in the judgment, was that the assaults included attempts to penetrate her. They took place over several years at the complainant’s home, J.M.’s home and a deer-observation shed in woods in County Wicklow. Penetration was not achieved.
In June 2024, the sentencing judge imposed four years on each count, concurrently, with the final 12 months suspended. The judge identified the offending as premeditated, planned and systemic, and described it as a serious breach of trust. He also considered J.M.’s age and health, his lack of previous convictions, testimonials and the probation report. The sentencing judge regarded the remorse as genuine in the context presented.
The Court of Appeal said its role was limited: it could intervene only if the sentence substantially departed from the appropriate range and was unduly lenient. It found that the five-year headline sentence used by the sentencing judge was too low given the assaults’ gravity, the complainant’s age, the breach of trust, the frequency of the offending and the harm caused. That error affected the final sentence, which the court found unduly lenient. The court stressed that attempted rape was not charged and was not the subject of the convictions.
On resentencing, the court set a headline sentence of 11 years and allowed a two-year reduction for mitigation, producing nine years on each count. It cited J.M.’s age, health, lack of previous convictions and pro-social life since the offending. The court said there was little mitigation in terms of remorse or acceptance, and that a person who contests charges does not receive the mitigation a guilty plea might otherwise attract.
The court found no evidential basis to suspend any part of the sentence. It relied on the probation report’s assessment of limited victim empathy, lack of remorse and continued minimisation of the offending. It ordered all five nine-year terms to run concurrently.