Kerry rapist fails in appeal against 10-year sentence
A Kerry man who raped his former girlfriend and threatened to kill her during a prolonged attack involving “violence of the most gratuitous nature” has failed in an appeal against his 10-year sentence.
The 39-year-old man, who cannot be named in order to protect the identity of the victim, was sentenced to 10 years with three years suspended by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court in December last year.
He had pleaded guilty to raping his girlfriend of two years just two weeks after they had broken up.
The Court heard that during the attack the man choked his victim and also picked up an Iron, threatening her he would wrap the cord around her neck and use it to choke her
Counsel for the applicant, Mr Anthony Sammon SC, told the court that Mr Justice Carney failed to take in to account the fact that the applicant was at the time of sentencing a “different person” from whom he had been at the time of the offence.
He said that the sentencing judge erred in principle by failing to have sufficient regard to the man’s plea of guilty, his expressions of remorse and his personal circumstances at the time of the attack.
Mr Sammon said that the applicant’s plea of guilty was significant, but had been “lumped in” with the other mitigating factors in the case. He said that the discount due to the man for this plea should have been reflected in the overall tariff imposed, rather than expressed as a suspended portion of that sentence.
Counsel for the State, Mr Thomas Creed SC, told the court that having been given credit for his plea of guilty, the man “wanted another bite of the cherry” and have this mitigation applied to the overall tariff imposed.
He said that although the plea of guilty was of importance it was nevertheless still a mitigating factor and had been regarded, along with the other mitigating factors in the case, “in a very substantial way” by the sentencing judge.
Mr Justice Liam McKechnie, presiding at the Court of Criminal Appeal, said that the court had counted 14 or more separate incidences of violence perpetrated by the man during the “terrifying” attack, including a threat to kill which by itself warranted a term of imprisonment.
However, he said that the court was prepared to accept that the man’s actions could be described as “out of character” and that it was highly unlikely he would offend in such a manner again.
Mr Justice McKechnie said the court had determined that there was no injustice in the case and that it accordingly would not interfere in the sentence imposed.
However, he said the court would not make any ruling on the important issue of whether credit for a plea of guilty should be reflected in an actual sentence imposed or in the suspended portion of a sentence.
Mr Justice McKechnie said the issue raised about mitigation was not critical to the disposition of the case because the crime was one of such considerable seriousness and violence it was “virtually impossible” to conclude the sentence imposed should have been more lenient.
In conclusion he said that the finding did not mean the court regarded the structure of sentence as being one based on a principle immune to further challenge at the Court of Criminal Appeal.
