The Court of Appeal has refused an application by Timothy O’Sullivan to extend the time for appealing the severity of an 11-year prison sentence for rape and sexual assault offences against two teenage boys.
The ex tempore judgment, delivered by the court on 22 March 2019, said O’Sullivan was about 12 or 13 weeks out of time. The appeal court considered that he had decided within the deadline that he wished to appeal, despite legal advice that an appeal was unlikely to succeed. His contact with a counsellor was cited as evidence of his state of mind at the time.
The court weighed those circumstances and the length of the delay against the public interest in finality, particularly in sex cases, where delayed appeals can affect victims. It said no information had been provided to suggest anything unusual about the trial judge’s approach to sentence or matters requiring appellate investigation.
O’Sullivan’s grounding affidavit said he wished to challenge the consecutive sentences and the total sentence. The Court of Appeal said that, on the limited information before it, the trial court was entitled to impose consecutive terms for offending involving two young victims. It described the case as involving aggravating factors, including an abuse of trust and the use of alcohol, licensed premises and saunas.
The appeal court said there was no real prospect of a successful sentence appeal. It added that the sentence appeared consistent with what would have been expected and could as likely be increased as reduced if appealed. Concluding that extending time would not serve the interests of justice, the court refused the application. It did not hear or decide the proposed sentence appeal itself.