The Court of Appeal has reduced Paul Flaherty’s five-year prison sentence for sexual assault to two-and-a-half years because of concerns about the effect of other allegations that did not result in convictions.
Flaherty was convicted of sexual assault following a trial held between 21 November and 12 December 2017. The indictment contained several counts, but on the charges other than sexual assault the jury either acquitted him or failed to reach a verdict. His conviction appeal was dismissed in July 2019.
At sentencing, the court had to separate the conduct supporting the sexual assault conviction from the wider allegations presented during the trial. Garda Aisling O’Connor identified three matters relevant to the sexual assault: the removal of the complainant’s trousers against her will, strangulation for a period, and genital touching.
The trial judge considered the offence a very serious sexual assault and imposed five years’ imprisonment. He also expressly sought to avoid sentencing Flaherty for conduct on which there had been no conviction.
The Court of Appeal accepted that the judge had approached that difficult task with particular care. However, it remained uneasy about the resulting sentence.
The appeal court said judges must ensure that allegations resulting in acquittal or jury disagreement do not influence, or appear to influence, sentence. It considered the five-year term to be the kind of sentence that might be expected where a sexual assault formed part of wider and more serious sexual misconduct.
The court also noted that although Flaherty had contested the case and therefore did not receive the mitigation normally associated with a guilty plea, the mixed jury verdicts distinguished his position from someone convicted on every count after a fully contested trial.
Taking account of his personal circumstances, positive testimonials and absence of similar previous convictions, the court resentenced him to two-and-a-half years, backdated to the original Circuit Court sentence.