The Court of Appeal has increased to 19 years the prison sentence imposed on a father convicted of repeatedly raping and sexually abusing his daughter over approximately 12 and a half years.
P.H. was convicted after trial of 48 offences: 25 sample counts of rape and 23 sample counts of indecent assault. The abuse began when his daughter was about three and a half years old and continued until she was approximately 15 or 16.
The sentencing court had imposed 13 years’ imprisonment on the rape counts, with the final 18 months suspended, after selecting a headline sentence of 16 years. The remaining sexual assault counts were taken into consideration.
The Director of Public Prosecutions asked the Court of Appeal to review that sentence as unduly lenient. The DPP argued that insufficient weight had been given to the prolonged offending, the victim’s very young age when it began, the father-daughter relationship and the persistent nature of the abuse.
Delivering the court’s decision, Ms Justice Isobel Kennedy said the abuse was relentless, degrading and involved an egregious breach of trust. The court noted that P.H. used ordinary childhood requests, including requests for pocket money, as leverage for sexual abuse and that the offending caused significant physical, psychological and emotional harm. The victim had also attempted to take her own life.
The Court of Appeal found an error in principle in the original headline sentence and quashed the sentence. It substituted a notional headline of 22 years.
Mitigation was limited principally to P.H.’s age, about 70, and his health difficulties. The court gave no weight to his absence of previous convictions because of the prolonged hidden offending, and no weight to family support or his history of providing for his family.
After mitigation, the court imposed 19 years’ imprisonment on each rape count, taking the indecent assault counts into consideration. No part was suspended. The sentence was backdated to February 9, 2024.