The Court of Appeal has increased to 12 years the sentence imposed on a mother for sexually exploiting her children, after finding that the original sentence was unduly lenient. The court quashed the sentence on those counts and resentenced her, leaving the sentences on the other counts and three years of post-release supervision unchanged.
The Director of Public Prosecutions brought the review under section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993. The woman, identified in the judgment as CC, was convicted of sexual assault, sexual exploitation and child cruelty. The court said it had changed the initials used for the respondent and victims to protect the children’s identities.
The offences occurred between August 2014 and April 2016 and involved three of the five children named in the indictment. The court said CC sexually assaulted the children and, in some instances, allowed other adults to abuse them. It described the exploitation offences as particularly serious. The judgment does not set out the details of the sexual activity.
At sentencing, the trial judge set a 12-year headline sentence for the sexual exploitation offences, then reduced it to nine years. The sentences for the other counts ranged from four to five years for child cruelty and four to five years for sexual assault. All sentences were concurrent, producing an overall nine-year prison term.
The Director argued that the exploitation sentence did not reflect the gravity of the offending, and also challenged the sentences for sexual assault and the overall effect of concurrent sentences. The respondent argued that the trial judge had properly assessed her role and the totality of the offending. The appeal court did not alter the other sentences or separately increase the overall term for those counts.
The court accepted the trial judge’s assessment that the appropriate range for the exploitation offences was 10 to 15 years, but concluded that the 12-year headline sentence was too low. It said CC’s role placed her at the very top of that range, while taking account of the trial judge’s view that she was less responsible for driving the offending than her co-offenders. The court found an error in principle, quashed the sentence on the exploitation counts and resentenced her to 15 years before mitigation.
In setting the final term, the court allowed a 20 per cent reduction for mitigation, including her difficult early family life and intellectual functioning. It said her lack of previous convictions carried limited weight given the prolonged offending. Her admissions to gardaí did not provide substantial mitigation because she later withdrew them at trial and did not acknowledge guilt or express remorse. The court reduced the 15-year term to 12 years. The sentences on the remaining counts and three years of post-release supervision remain as imposed at trial.