The Court of Appeal has refused an appeal against an 18-year prison sentence imposed after Anthony Cassidy was convicted of rape and causing serious harm.
In an ex tempore judgment delivered on 8 October 2019, the court said it could identify no error in principle in the trial judge’s approach to deciding a proportionate sentence. The three-judge court comprised Peart, Edwards and Kennedy JJ. The judgment was delivered by Peart J.
The offences arose from events in the early hours of 25 June 2017. The appeal judgment did not describe those events in detail, saying that was unnecessary to its decision and could add to the distress of people connected to the victim.
The trial judge had characterised the offences as among the most serious of their kind and said that, without mitigation, they would warrant life imprisonment. Taking account of the guilty plea and mitigation, the judge instead imposed a fixed term of 18 years. The trial judge also declined to suspend part of the sentence, saying the length of the term made it impossible to speculate about future rehabilitation for that purpose.
The Court of Appeal said the trial judge had considered aggravating factors and appropriately weighed the available mitigation, particularly Cassidy’s guilty plea at a relatively early stage and some evidence of remorse. It agreed that the 18-year term properly accounted for those factors against a headline sentence of life imprisonment.
The court said a sentencing judge has discretion, and that an appeal court should not interfere where sentencing principles and proportionality have been correctly applied. It concluded that the offences were at the highest point on the gravity spectrum for that type of offending and refused the appeal. The judgment does not state any further order.