The Court of Appeal reduced concurrent sentences imposed on an anonymised appellant for seven rape counts, finding that the 15-year headline sentence set at trial was excessive. It imposed nine years’ imprisonment on each count and suspended the final 12 months of each sentence on terms similar to those set below.
The appellant had appealed 10-year concurrent sentences imposed by the Central Criminal Court on 16 December 2016. Three sexual assault counts had been taken into consideration at sentencing. The offences were under section 4 and section 2 of the Criminal Law (Rape) (Amendment) Act 1990, respectively.
The judgment says the appellant pleaded guilty after making significant admissions when arrested in December 2014. The complainant, his niece, had alleged that abuse took place between 2007 and 2014, when she was aged seven to 14. The appellant was just short of 16 when the offending began and 23 when it ended. He had no previous convictions. The Court of Appeal noted the complainant’s account of serious and lasting harm, including in a recent letter to the court.
The appellant argued that the trial judge gave insufficient weight to his age, guilty plea, admissions, remorse and rehabilitation efforts, and should have imposed a partly suspended sentence. The Court of Appeal acknowledged that abuse beginning while an offender was a child generally calls for an adjustment in sentence, including where it continues into adulthood. It also noted that much of the offending occurred after the appellant reached adulthood and that the duration and seriousness of the abuse supported a high degree of culpability.
The appeal court concluded that a 15-year headline sentence would have been appropriate if the appellant had been an adult throughout the offending, but his age when it began required a lower starting point. It set the headline sentence at 12 years, then reduced it to nine years to reflect strong mitigating factors. The court suspended the final year to encourage rehabilitation, noting the appellant’s efforts to transfer to Arbour Hill prison to access a sex abusers programme sooner.
The judgment does not set out the terms attached to the suspended portion; it says they are similar to those imposed by the sentencing court. The sentences remain concurrent. The source does not give the appeal judgment’s citation or a judgment date in the supplied input metadata; its text says it was delivered on 29 January 2018.