DPP v Canliffe
| Jurisdiction | Ireland |
| Judge | Finnegan J. |
| Judgment Date | 25 January 2012 |
| Neutral Citation | [2012] IECCA 2 |
| Court | Court of Criminal Appeal |
| Date | 25 January 2012 |
[2012] IECCA 2
COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL
Finnegan J.
Moriarty J.
Hogan J.
CRIMINAL JUSTICE ACT 1993 S2
SEX OFFENDERS ACT 2001 S37
DPP v KEANE 2008 3 IR 177 2008 2 ILRM 321 2007/19/3800 2007 IECCA 119
CRIMINAL LAW
Sentence
Undue leniency - Sexual assault - Guilty plea - - Remorse - Financial compensation - Whether aggravating feature that assault occurred in complainant's home - Whether appropriate to suspend entirety of sentence - Two year suspended sentence - Value of early plea of guilty in sexual cases - Sentence increased to four year suspended sentence - (183/2011 - CCA - 25/1/2012) [2012] IECCA 2
People (DPP) v Canniffe
Judgment of the Court ( ex tempore) delivered on the 25th day of January 2012 by Finnegan J.
This is an application by the Director of Public Prosecutions pursuant to section 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993. The respondent pleaded guilty to a count of sexual assault contrary to the Criminal Law (Rape) Amendment Act 1990 as amended by section 37 of the Sexual Offenders Act 2001. The maximum penalty for that offence it having occurred after the 2001 amendment is one often years.
On the 9 th May 2010 in Bandon, Co. Cork A.G. a female was sexually assaulted. In the early morning of that day she was at home in bed with her partner. On the previous evening she had been socialising and had met with the respondent for the first time. They exchanged some conversation but apparently not a great deal. In any event the respondent got it into his head that he should call to her house at 4.30 a.m. He entered through an unlocked back door, went to the bedroom where his victim was sharing a bed with her partner and he got into bed. He assaulted her by inserting his hand inside her pyjamas on two occasions and on each occasion inserted his fingers into her vagina. She awoke, realised what was going on and screamed which clearly alerted her partner who threw the respondent out of the house. From events earlier in the evening which were recorded on CCTV the respondent was identified and was arrested. He had no difficulty admitting that he was in the house. He was very drunk he said on the evening and could not recall what had happened. Notwithstanding that he was prepared to accept the victim's account of what happened rather than to require her to go into evidence and he pleaded guilty on the basis of her account of what occurred that evening.
It is well settled that a plea of guilty is particularly valuable in the case of sexual offences. The earlier the plea is made the better. It relieves the victim from the anxiety leading up to the trial and the anxiety and the ordeal of giving evidence in such sensitive and personal matters. It is a major ameliorating feature in any of these cases. It is also something to note that where as here having regard to the amount of drink he had consumed, the respondent had no recollection, rather than test the victim's account of the evening, he was prepared to accept it notwithstanding his own lack of memory.
The respondent was born on the 13 th January 1982. He is a man of thirty years of age. He was educated to degree level having taken a...
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DPP v O.R
...place along the scale, the appellant relies on the judgment of Finnegan J in The People (Director of Public Prosecutions) v Sean Canniffe [2012] IECCA 2. In that case, the respondent had pleaded guilty to a sexual assault in similar circumstances and was sentenced to two years, the entirety......