The Court of Appeal reduced an eight-year custodial sentence imposed on A. M. for five indecent assaults on his daughter, finding the overall sentence somewhat disproportionate. It suspended the final year on the same terms as the Circuit Court, leaving seven years to be served in custody.
A. M. had pleaded guilty to five counts in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court. The offences took place in the family home between April 1985 and December 1986, when the complainant was aged nine and ten. The judgment says he touched and kissed her, digitally penetrated her and made her touch his penis. It also says he threatened that speaking about the abuse would break up the family.
On 11 November 2019, the Circuit Court imposed an aggregate nine-year sentence, suspending its final 12 months. The Court of Appeal judgment, delivered on 14 September 2020, records that the sentencing judge treated the consecutive term as necessary to reflect sustained abuse. The appellant challenged the sentence as disproportionate and argued that the judge had proceeded without a formal plea in mitigation.
The Court of Appeal found that no formal plea in mitigation had been tendered. It said the sentencing judge had made efforts to help A. M. obtain legal representation and had properly identified the mitigating factors, but that an enquiry about whether he wished to make a submission would have ensured optimum fair procedures. The omission was an error in principle, the court held, but not an error of substance warranting intervention on that ground.
The court also considered the late guilty plea, A. M.’s denial of the offences to a probation officer after pleading guilty, the aggravating features and mitigation. It said the plea’s mitigating weight was reduced by its lateness and his position to the probation officer. It identified the complainant’s young age, the breach of trust, the prolonged offending, its impact and the threat as aggravating features.
Allowing the appeal to a limited extent on totality, the court quashed the original sentence and substituted a total sentence of eight years, with the final year suspended on the same terms. The sentences on Counts 1, 4 and 11 remained unchanged; the sentences on Counts 6 and 8 were each reduced by six months. Count 8 remained consecutive. The court also directed that the bond be entered before the prison Governor or Assistant Governor, with liberty to re-enter if an issue arose in taking it.