The Court of Appeal has rejected an appeal by a man identified as J.A. against his conviction for rape and sexual assault, and dismissed a Director of Public Prosecutions application to review his sentence as unduly lenient.
The judgment, delivered on 26 October 2018, concerned one rape conviction and 12 sexual assault convictions. The offences were committed between August 1992 and May 1995, when the complainant was aged between 12 and 15. The man was in his mid-forties at the time.
He was sentenced in July 2015 to six years’ imprisonment for rape and three years for each sexual assault, with all terms running concurrently from 13 February 2015. He appealed the convictions and sentence; the DPP sought longer sentences.
The conviction appeal focused on the trial judge’s directions about the complainant’s repeated visits to the man’s home. The defence argued that the returns were relevant to whether the complainant’s account was true, although consent was not legally available as a defence because of the complainant’s age. The Court of Appeal said the judge had sufficiently explained that distinction to the jury. It rejected the conviction appeal, finding the trial satisfactory.
On sentence, the DPP argued that the six-year term did not reflect the seriousness of the offending, including the complainant’s age, the age difference, repetition over several years, alleged planning or grooming, and the effects on the complainant. The DPP also challenged the sentencing judge’s treatment of mitigation and the absence of consecutive terms. The defence appeal against sentence was pursued only nominally.
The appeal court said the sentence was lenient in the circumstances. It nevertheless held that the DPP had not met the burden required to establish undue leniency. Although the trial judge had not set out a headline sentence, the appeal court considered the merits and concluded that the judge had taken relevant factors into account, expressly or by implication. It also said a judge does not automatically err by failing to consider consecutive sentences where relevant factors have been accounted for.
The court dismissed the appeal, leaving the convictions and concurrent sentences in place.