The Court of Appeal has refused a DPP application to increase the sentence imposed on PP for sustained sexual abuse of two young sisters over almost four years.
PP received four years and six months' imprisonment on each of ten sexual assault counts, all running concurrently. A further charge of sexual exploitation was taken into consideration.
The offending occurred between July 2009 and February 2013 while PP was living with the children's mother and acting in loco parentis, effectively taking on a parental role. The older child was aged between seven and ten during the assaults and her sister between four and eight.
The court recorded allegations of highly sexualised abuse in the family home, including both children being assaulted together or in each other's presence. The older child also said PP threatened to kill her and her sister if she told their mother. The exploitation count concerned the children being exposed to pornography while PP involved the younger girl in sexualised conduct.
PP made significant admissions during Garda interviews in 2015 and later pleaded guilty. He had no previous convictions. The sentencing judge regarded those admissions and pleas as particularly important because they spared the children from giving evidence and materially assisted the prosecution.
The DPP did not argue that the individual four-and-a-half-year sentences were themselves too low. Instead, the prosecution argued that some sentences should have been consecutive to reflect the existence of two victims.
The Court of Appeal agreed that where multiple victims are sexually abused, a sentencing judge should expressly consider whether consecutive terms are appropriate. However, the ultimate question remained whether the total sentence fairly reflected all of the offending while allowing for mitigation.
Here, the court found that the sentencing judge had identified the children's ages, the abuse of trust, duration, nature of the assaults and impact on both victims. Given the substantial value of PP's admissions and guilty pleas, the overall sentence did not depart significantly from the norm.
The DPP's undue-leniency application was therefore refused.