The Court of Appeal has upheld the sentences imposed on Slawomir Gierlowski for three attacks in Clondalkin, while removing a condition that he complete a sex-offender programme as part of a suspended sentence.
In a judgment delivered on 31 May 2022, the court explained that it had dismissed his appeal against sentence on 27 July 2021, after dismissing his appeal against conviction. It rejected the remaining challenges to the sentences, finding no error of principle in the sentencing judge’s approach to the offences, mitigation or totality.
The offences involved three unrelated complainants and took place in 2011, 2015 and 2016. The sentencing judge imposed sentences that, because of consecutive terms, amounted to 22½ years’ imprisonment, with the final four years suspended subject to conditions. The Court of Appeal upheld those sentences.
The first attack involved a woman returning home at night. The judgment says she was brought to the ground, sexually assaulted and punched, suffering facial injuries including a fractured nose. The second complainant was attacked while returning home in 2015. She was restrained with a ligature and tape, sexually assaulted and threatened; she suffered physical injuries and continuing psychological effects. In 2016, a third woman was attacked while walking to the Red Cow Luas stop. She grabbed a knife held to her face and neck and suffered tendon injuries to her hand, with expected long-term mobility issues.
Gierlowski argued that the headline sentences were excessive, that the sentencing judge gave insufficient weight to mitigation, and that false imprisonment should have been treated as aggravating the other offences in each incident rather than as a separate offence for sentencing. The appeal court rejected those arguments. It said false imprisonment was an offence of utmost seriousness and was inseparable from the other serious offences. It also found the judge had given the appellant substantial benefit for the mitigating factors and that the sentences were appropriate.
The court did, however, discharge the condition requiring Gierlowski to complete a sex-offender programme as part of the suspended sentence for the 2011 sexual assault. It said the condition could not serve a purpose or be policed legitimately while he maintained his denial of guilt. All other orders remain in force, including nine years of post-release supervision under the Sex Offenders Act 2001.