Court reserves judgement in sex assault case
The Court of Criminal Appeal has today reserved judgement in the case of a Co Tipperary man who is appealing against the severity of his eight-year sentence for a violent sexual assault on a teenager.
In February 2011, Noel Holland (aged 39), with a last address at Clarkes Flats, Main Street, Templemore, was sentenced to eight years by Mr Justice Paul Carney at the Central Criminal Court after he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting the then 18-year-old at his home on February 1, 2009.
The court heard that Holland invited the girl back to his home on the pretence of allowing her to call a taxi after they had both been at another woman’s home that night.
He later sexually assaulted her by touching her breast while he held her nose and mouth and tried to choke her.
The teenager was crying and begging him to stop but Holland took off her boots and leggings and demanded that she open her legs. When she refused he forced her to perform oral sex on him.
He allowed her to go to the toilet and the victim managed to grab her mobile phone en-route.
She texted her father: “I am being raped” but when he returned her call, Holland got the phone off the victim and forced her to perform oral sex on him again.
The victim’s mother then called her and the teenager shouted into the phone: “Help I am being raped. The man is Holland. I am in Templemore.”
Holland faced a more serious charge, but pleaded guilty to sexual assault after the Director of Public Prosecutions accepted it on the basis that the full facts of the case would be given.
Mr Justice Carney declared Holland a sex offender and said that it was clear that “the facts proved would have supported a conviction on a more serious offence” and would have opened the court to a higher penalty than the 10 years available for sex assault.
He suspended the final three years of the sentence on condition that Holland keep away from his victim and ordered that he undergo five years post-release supervision.
Counsel for the applicant, Ms Mary Rose Gearty SC, told the appeal court that the victim is now deceased and the suspended part of sentence could not be imposed.
She said that the aggregate period of imprisonment and post-release supervision extended to 13 years and thus exceeded the maximum penalty of 10 years available for the offence, which was forbidden by statute.
Ms Deirdre Murphy SC, for the State, said the order was a post-release provision and not a post-sentence provision.
Counsel said that the maximum period of time the defendant could serve in prison was five years, after which time the five year post-release provision would come in to effect.
Presiding judge Mr Justice John MacMenamin said the court would reserve its decision in the matter and would return as soon as possible.
