The Court of Appeal has refused an appeal against sentence by A. A., who was convicted of two sexual assaults committed in June 2003. The court upheld the Central Criminal Court’s decision not to suspend the sentences.
The offences involved touching the complainant’s breast area and licking her vagina. The complainant was born in December 1989; the appellant was born in August 1997. The judgment says the conduct occurred when she was about 13 and a half.
A jury acquitted the appellant of charges of rape, attempted rape and one of three sexual assault counts. He pleaded not guilty to all five charges. At trial, he said he had been in a consensual sexual relationship with the complainant. The Court of Appeal noted that her age made consent legally irrelevant to the two offences for which he was convicted.
The appeal challenged the sentences as unduly severe and argued that the appellant should not have lost mitigation because he contested all counts. The court rejected that submission. It said a guilty plea to some counts would not have prevented him from defending the others, and that a plea would have spared the complainant from giving evidence about the admitted offences.
The appeal judgment also addressed remorse. Counsel had apologised at the sentencing hearing for the appellant’s remarks about the complainant and her family during a Garda interview. The court considered that apology of little significance, noting the appellant’s position that there had been factual consent and no moral culpability. It said the trial judge was entitled to infer that he lacked insight into the offending and its effects.
The Central Criminal Court set starting points of two to three years for the assault involving fondling and five years for the assault involving the complainant’s vagina. After considering case-specific mitigating factors, it reduced those terms to one year and one year and eight months respectively. The judgment records no physical force, no previous convictions, and the appellant’s positive engagement with work, education and family matters. It also describes the assaults as significant and their long-term effects as severe.
The Court of Appeal said the decision whether to suspend the sentences fell within the trial judge’s discretion and that he had addressed the relevant factors thoroughly. It therefore refused the appeal. The judgment does not state the sentences’ concurrency or the resulting total term.