Lombard sentence appeal adjourned
The Court of Criminal Appeal today adjourned an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions against the leniency of a seven year sentence, with two years suspended, on a unemployed Cork man who sexually assaulted 16 children over 16 months in fast food restaurants, swimming pools and sports grounds in the city.
The court was told by Ms Marjorie Farrelly BL, for the DPP, that James Lombard (aged 37), Blarney St, Cork was subsequently given a second seven years sentence to run consecutively with the original sentence imposed on May 31 last year after he pleaded guilty on November 4 last year to the sexual assault of a 10 year old girl on February 20 last year, while he was on bail on the original charges.
Lombard's counsel Mr Blaise O'Carroll SC, said that his client is appealing against the sentence imposed in November and Mr Justice McCracken said it seemed sensible to hear both the DPP's appeal against leniency and Lombard's appeal against sentence together. He adjourned
both appeals until a later date.
Cork Circuit Criminal Court was told last year that Lombard was convicted in February of sexually assaulting seven boys and in April he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting another seven boys and two girls aged between four and 10.
The court was told that the assaults occurred between May 18, 1993 and August 11, 1994 and many took place in the toilets of fast food restaurants in Cork and involved Lombard targeting young boys on their own.
Lombard was first arrested by gardaí in September 1994 but fled to England where gardaí located him in jail serving a sentence under a false name.
He was extradited to Ireland in June 2004 and went on trial last February but went on the run for two weeks on the last day of his trial before he was apprehended again by gardaí at Carrigaline in south Cork on February 28.
