The Court of Appeal increased Michael Murray’s sentence from 15 to 19 years’ imprisonment after finding that the original sentence was significantly inadequate for the offences and the absence of mitigating factors. The substituted sentence runs from 15 February 2010, the same date as the sentence imposed below.
The Director of Public Prosecutions had applied to review the sentence on grounds of undue leniency. Murray had received 15 years on each of two rape counts, with lesser concurrent sentences, after a 24-day trial in the Central Criminal Court. A jury convicted him of rape, section 4 rape, sexual assault, false imprisonment and child abduction. The Court of Appeal had dismissed his conviction appeal in March 2017.
The judgment describes the offences as taking place over about 13 hours from the afternoon of 12 February 2010 into the following morning. The complainant, a young Chinese mother, was walking with her four-year-old son in the Smithfield area when Murray lured her into an apartment on a false pretext. The court said she was imprisoned and subjected to repeated sexual assaults and violence, drugged, restrained and threatened. During the night, Murray took the child by car and left him alone in the Smithfield area. He later left the complainant bound and gagged in the apartment.
The DPP argued that the combination of the prolonged abduction, the child’s presence and abandonment, the violence and threats, and the lack of mitigation made 15 years inadequate. Murray argued that the sentence was substantial, within the available range and not unduly lenient. The court noted his extensive record of previous convictions, while also stating that none were sexual offences. It described the case as among the most serious category of rape cases.
The court said sentences of 20 to 21 years were indicated by the cases cited to it where there was no mitigation. It considered that a sentence of 20 or possibly 21 years would have been appropriate at first instance. It gave limited recognition to the time taken to hear the review by imposing a sentence marginally lower than that range. The court therefore set aside the Central Criminal Court sentence and substituted 19 years’ imprisonment, backdated to 15 February 2010.