The Court of Appeal has dismissed A.B.’s appeal against the severity of an effective 18-year prison sentence for two rape offences and attempted rape involving three complainants.
In a judgment delivered on 13 October 2025, the court rejected arguments that the Central Criminal Court had set excessive starting sentences, failed to apply totality and proportionality properly, or given insufficient weight to mitigation. The appeal concerned sentence only; the offences had been admitted on guilty pleas on a full-facts basis.
The offences took place at separate times in 2021. The Court of Appeal summarised evidence that the first complainant was threatened with a hammer and restrained with a rope after arriving at A.B.’s apartment. In the second incident, the complainant said she was threatened with a screwdriver and raped orally, vaginally and anally. In the third, the complainant said A.B. threatened her with a screwdriver and stabbed her in the side; she fought back and escaped. These accounts were given in the sentencing proceedings and set out in the appeal judgment.
The Central Criminal Court imposed consecutive sentences of seven years for oral rape, nine years for rape and four years for attempted rape. The final two years were suspended, and the sentence was backdated to 27 August 2021. The Court of Appeal described the post-mitigation sentence before suspension as 20 years, leaving an effective term of 18 years.
The appeal court upheld the sentencing judge’s headline terms of 12, 16 and eight years respectively before adjustments for totality and mitigation. It said the first offence involved coercion, force, restraint and use of a hammer, while the second was an extremely serious rape involving violence, a screwdriver and a complainant recovering from surgery. The attempted rape was also significantly aggravated by the use of a screwdriver to stab the complainant, violence and restraint, the court said.
The court accepted that the sentencing judge had taken account of guilty pleas, the stage at which they were entered, A.B.’s youth and personal circumstances, including addictions described in reports before the sentencing court. It found the reduction for totality and mitigation sufficient, and the suspension of the final two years generous. The appeal was dismissed.