DPP v T.Q.

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Mr. Justice Mahon
• Judgment Date: 16 July 2015
• Neutral Citation: [2015] IECA 237
• Court: Court of Appeal (Ireland)
• Date: 16 July 2015
• Docket Number: Appeal No: 159/11

DPP v Q (T)

The Director of Public Prosecutions

Respondent

- and -

T.Q.

Appellant

[2015] IECA 237

Appeal No: 159/11

THE COURT OF APPEAL

Sentencing – Sexual offences – Sentence length – Appellant seeking to appeal against conviction and sentence – Whether the sentencing judge ought to have suspended a greater portion of the sentence

Facts: The appellant subjected his son, the victim and complainant, to acts of sexual violence and abuse over a period of two or three years, from the age of twelve. These incidents took place in the family home. The victim himself at the age of about eighteen in turn engaged in the sexual abuse of a younger sister, and in respect of which he was granted immunity from prosecution by the respondent, the DPP. Knowledge of the sex abuse came to light when the sister made an allegation of sexual abuse against the complainant. It was only after this complaint had been made that the complainant made the complaints concerning his father. The appellant was convicted by a jury at the Central Criminal Court of eleven counts of rape and thirty six counts of sexual assault following an eleven day trial. The sentences imposed in March 2010 were concurrent fourteen year prison terms (with the final eighteen months suspended) in respect of the rape offences, and concurrent sentences of ten and three years for the sexual assault offences. The appellant appealed to the Court of Appeal against both conviction and sentence on grounds including: 1) Failing to adequately charge the jury in respect of the grant of immunity to the complainant and to his mother; 2) Failing to adequately warn the jury in respect of the credibility of the complainant and his mother; 3) Failing to adequately charge the jury in relation to the evidence of the complainant”s mother and the extent to which such evidence may have provided corroboration of the complainant”s evidence; 4) Failing to warn the jury in relation to the evidence of what was described as protected witnesses. The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal against conviction.

Held by Mahon J that, having considered the range of sentences that have been handed down in other cases of a broadly similar nature in terms of their seriousness, the appropriate sentence, based on the scale of sentences evident from these cases, is somewhere in the region of ten to eleven years. In this case, Mahon J held the net sentence to be twelve and a half years. The Court took...