The Court of Appeal resentenced a man convicted of three counts of rape, suspending the final 18 months of his seven-year prison term for five years subject to conditions. It found that the sentencing judge had not given sufficient weight to psychological factors and rehabilitation when calculating the custodial term.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Mahon on 26 June 2018, followed the court’s dismissal earlier that day of the man’s appeal against conviction. The sentence appeal concerned offences committed at a location in County Cork during three periods between 2009 and 2011. The complainant was the appellant’s nephew; the judgment anonymises both as J.S. and the complainant.
The appellant had been sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment, with the final six months suspended on conditions. His sentence appeal raised seven grounds, including claims that the sentencing judge gave insufficient weight to his age, lack of relevant previous convictions, intellectual disability and personal circumstances, and set the starting point too high.
The Court of Appeal said the sentencing judge had taken account of the appellant’s significant intellectual disability. The judge had identified a nine-year headline sentence, reduced from a stated 12-year starting point for an adult without intellectual disability, before considering mitigation. The appeal court agreed that the nine-year headline sentence was appropriate.
The court reviewed evidence including a report by clinical neuropsychologist and clinical psychologist Dr Breda McLeavey. It described the report as showing severe difficulties across intelligence, memory, literacy and adaptive functioning. The court said these factors required marked reflection in the sentence. It also noted evidence of a dysfunctional childhood and long-standing psychological difficulties, while stating that the appellant understood the wrongfulness of his conduct. The judgment described the offences as serious sexual abuse of a young child by an adult uncle who was still a teenager.
The court also referred to the complainant’s victim impact statement, which it said illustrated the troubling consequences of the abuse. It concluded that greater weight should have been attached to current and historical psychological factors in fixing the net custodial term, and that rehabilitation had been insufficiently provided for. It treated those as errors of principle requiring intervention.
The court resentenced the appellant on the day of judgment to seven years’ imprisonment, with the final 18 months suspended for five years subject to conditions. The judgment does not specify the conditions.