The Court of Appeal has replaced the sentences imposed on D.D. for rape and sexual exploitation with life imprisonment, after allowing an application by the Director of Public Prosecutions to review the sentences for undue leniency.
The judgment, delivered on 30 July 2024, concerned offending against three of D.D.’s children. The court said the sexual abuse occurred over a prolonged period and against a background of neglect. To protect the children, the judgment uses anonymised initials and limits detail about the offending.
D.D. had been convicted of two counts of rape, four counts of rape under section 4, three counts of sexual exploitation, six counts of sexual assault and 16 counts of child cruelty. The trial judge imposed concurrent sentences, including 15 years for the rape and sexual exploitation offences. The DPP argued that the headline sentences for the sexual offences were too low and that the overall sentence did not reflect the gravity of the offending.
The Court of Appeal said it would intervene only where there was a clear divergence between the sentence imposed and the sentence that ought to have been imposed, amounting to an error in principle. It found that threshold had been met. While the trial judge had placed the offences in the highest sentencing range, the appeal court concluded that the 16-year notional sentence was at the bottom of that range and did not adequately reflect the offending’s gravity, particularly given that the sentences were concurrent.
The court said the abuse involved three young and vulnerable children, continued over time and included D.D. directing them to engage with other people while he was present. It also considered his position as their father, the breach of trust and the neglect surrounding the sexual offending. The court acknowledged mitigating matters, including no previous convictions, low intellectual functioning and epilepsy, but said the lack of previous convictions carried very limited weight given the number and duration of the offences.
The appeal court quashed the sentences for rape and sexual exploitation and resentenced D.D. It imposed life imprisonment for the section 2 rape, section 4 rape and sexual exploitation offences, finding the case fell within the exceptional category that justified a life sentence.
The court left the sentences for the remaining offences as imposed by the trial judge. Post-release supervision also remains as previously ordered. The judgment does not state the terms of that supervision.