The Court of Appeal has upheld a three-year prison sentence, with the final two years suspended, imposed on a man for sexually assaulting an eight-year-old girl on four occasions when he himself was 15.
B.M. pleaded guilty in December 2024 to four counts of sexual assault arising from incidents during June, July and August 1999. He was sentenced in March 2025, aged 40, with three counts taken into consideration alongside the count on which sentence was imposed.
The complainant told the sentencing court that the abuse had caused lasting psychological harm. The assaults involved repeated touching of her vaginal area, including under her clothing. On some occasions B.M. had been babysitting her.
On appeal, B.M. argued that the sentencing judge had not given sufficient weight to his age and immaturity at the time, his lack of previous convictions, his guilty pleas, apologies, work and family circumstances and the approximately 25 years that had passed since the offences.
The Court of Appeal rejected those arguments.
Mr Justice Edwards said an offender who was a child when offending but is an adult when charged and sentenced must be sentenced as an adult. However, age and maturity at the time of the offences remain highly important because they can substantially reduce culpability.
The court found that the sentencing judge had properly made that allowance. Against it stood the repeated nature of the assaults, the age difference, a breach of trust and the significant harm caused to the complainant.
The court also rejected an argument based on a confidential civil settlement. Because its terms and financial impact were not disclosed, the sentencing judge had no evidential basis to treat it as meaningful compensation or evidence of remorse.
A community-service argument also failed. The sentence was legally a three-year term, notwithstanding the two-year suspended portion, so legislation requiring consideration of community service for sentences of 12 months or less did not apply.
The appeal against severity was dismissed, leaving the original sentence in place.