The Director of Public Prosecutions v G.N.

• Jurisdiction: Ireland
• Judge: Mr Justice Charleton
• Judgment Date: 20 November 2025
• Neutral Citation: [2025] IECA 254
• Docket Number: Bill number: DUDP 48/2022
• Court: Court of Appeal (Ireland)

Between

The People (at the suit of the Director of Public Prosecutions)

Prosecutor/Respondent

and

GN

Accused/Appellant

[2025] IECA 254

Charleton J

Edwards J

Burns J

Bill number: DUDP 48/2022

Court of Appeal Record Number: 298/2024

An Chúirt Achomhairc Choiriúil

The Court of Appeal

Sentencing – Sexual assault – Undue leniency – Respondent seeking review of sentence – Whether sentence was unduly lenient

Facts: The respondent, the Director of Public Prosecutions (the DPP), applied to the Court of Appeal seeking to review the sentence imposed on the appellant (GN) on 7 November 2024 for undue leniency under s. 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993. GN pleaded guilty to 22 counts of sexual assault, simpliciter on a girl under 17 years old. Aggravated sexual assault was not charged. There were 12 offences against "child A" and 10 offences against "child B". Those pleas admitted to a series of offences which, as the sentencing judge put it, “were regular and frequent”. While, in the transcript of the sentencing hearing, reference was made to a “mid-range” of severity, no authority was cited to the judge as to what the most grave category of those offences might be or what sort of cases might be regarded as potentially attracting a medium sentencing band or a more lenient sentencing approach. This led the Court of Appeal to review the categorisation of those offences with a view to giving sentencing judges some general guidance as to sentencing bands in sexual assault.

Held by the Court that without the guidance which structures the approach to this most variable of offences, the trial judge’s approach was not sufficiently informed. The Court understood that where there are sentencing band judgments, as in burglary, assault, manslaughter, rape and other offences, the DPP will offer reasons as to why offending is seen as coming into a category of gravity; this judgment established such guidance. The Court could not approach the offences for which the maximum is 14 years on any basis other than they fit into the upper range of offending; these were repeated offences, against girls who were young, vulnerable, dependant and, from the victim impact statements, the harm done had been at the upper end of the spectrum for this form of sexual violence. Where two female children were the victims, the Court held that the band of 9 to 14 years was engaged as the upper range; the sentencing judge applied a sentence which appeared to be a headline sentence of 6 years which was then reduced to 3 years, based on reducing two consecutive sentences of 6 years, making 12 years, back so as to engage the totality principle. The Court held that this approach did not meet the gravity of the offences.

The Court would repeat the sentencing exercise by seeking any new information, should there be any, and then assessing the appropriate sentence in the light of this analysis.

Application granted.

Judgment of Court delivered by Mr Justice Charleton, Thursday 20 November 2025

1 The Director of Public Prosecutions seeks to review the sentence imposed on GN, the appellant, by Her Honour Judge Sinéad Ní Chúlacháin on 7 November 2024 for undue leniency under s 2 of the Criminal Justice Act 1993. This provides that if it “appears to the Director of Public Prosecutions that a sentence imposed by a court … on conviction of a person on indictment was unduly lenient” an application may be made to this Court to review the sentence, whereupon the Court may “quash the sentence and in place of it impose on the convicted person such sentence as it considers appropriate, being a sentence which could have been imposed on him by the sentencing court concerned” or “refuse the application.”

2 GN pleaded guilty to 22 counts of sexual assault, simpliciter and not aggravated sexual assault, on “a female child”, meaning a girl under 17 years old. Aggravated sexual assault, which carries up to life imprisonment, was not charged. There were 12 offences against child A, committed while she was between eight years and 16 years old. There were 10 offences against child B, committed while she was between seven and 15 years old. These pleas admitted to a series of offences which, as the sentencing judge put it, “were regular and frequent.” While, in the transcript of the sentencing hearing, reference was made to a “mid-range” of severity, no authority was cited to the judge as to what the most grave category of these offences might be or what sort of cases might be regarded as potentially attracting a medium sentencing band or a more lenient sentencing approach. This has led the Court to review the categorisation of these offences with a view to giving sentencing judges some general guidance as to sentencing bands in sexual assault.

Complexities

3 A complication in this is that a substantial number of these kind of offences tried in our courts may be from decades ago and that the relevant sentence for sexual assault has been markedly varied over that time. Clearly, a court may only sentence for up to the maximum penalty provided at the time of the offence, though that may often appear inadequate for the oldest cohort of offending. Furthermore, a series of offences may, because it takes place over years, be subject to different maximum sentences. Further potential for confusion on sentence may come from the way in which sexual violence may shift from one kind of abuse into another. This is not simply in the context of what, in the experience of the court, may be described as grooming, where the abuse of vulnerable individuals and children becomes more degrading over time. Rather, whereas the common law started out with offences of rape, buggery and indecent assault, with individually defined maximum sentences for each, legislative intervention has added new categories of rape and has also provided a definition for aggravated sexual assault where particularly repellent actions characterise a particular offence, while at the same time, on the doctrine of lesser included offence, these novel offences of sexual degradation also incorporate the elements of sexual assault and of attempt at such offences. As the Internet has developed, the abuse of children online has become a mushrooming phenomenon; whereby offences of accessing child pornography have been created. Children are abused online and, though an accused will not have participated, the demand for the material is what generates those crimes. Where a child is the victim of sexual violence, the new offence of defilement may be what is charged instead of sexual assault. Hence, a brief presentation of the taxonomy of sexual offences is required before the Court proceeds to consider the elements whereby sexual assault may be considered in broad levels of gravity.

Taxonomy

4 The purpose of this concise statement is to demonstrate that sexual assault is a foundational element of offences of sexual violence and one in respect of which the doctrine of lesser included offence enables, by statute or by common law, a verdict on that basis where a sexual offence involving more elements is subject of a not guilty verdict. That can occur where the jury acquit, for example of rape, but convict of sexual assault and it can also happen where sexual assault, simpliciter, or more usually a series of such crimes is what is on the issue paper. But, where a more serious offence is not proven, there can be no question of sentencing on the basis of facts rejected by the jury. Obviously, because of the lack of physical contact, charges based on child pornography do not normally, unless the accused has participated, include sexual assault as an element.

5 Returning to the state of the law in 1922, Archbold's Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice in Criminal Cases (26th edn, Sweet and Maxwell, 1922) sets out sexual offences as: buggery, which can be lawful with a person over 17 under s 3 of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences) Act 1993; rape; and indecent assault. Rape, attempts at rape and attempts at non-consensual activity legalised under s 3, of their nature, involve assaults in sexual circumstances and therefore will also constitute sexual assault. Indecent assault, without changing the law, was renamed sexual assault by s 2 of the Criminal Law (Rape) (Amendment) Act 1990 (the “1990 Act”). Thus far, the only change substantively was that the complete prohibition on buggery was changed for consensual actions among adult persons. But, increasingly the concept of rape had been amplified from the common law concept of penetration, however slight, of the vagina of a female by the penis of a male, to include violations as to what, in ordinary day-to-day speech, was called rape of a male. Hence, in s 4 of the 1990 Act, the definition specific to s 4, and set out in the statement of offence in indictments as rape under s 4, expanded the concept of rape to include “( a) penetration (however slight) of the anus or mouth by the penis”, which is gender neutral, or “( b) penetration (however slight) of the vagina by any object held or manipulated by another person.” Rape under s 4 carries life imprisonment, as does non-consensual or under-age buggery. Again, it is challenging to imagine circumstances where proximate attempts at these violations could be anything other than sexual assault.

6 Section 3 of the 1990 Act introduced a new offence at a time when the penalty for sexual assault was a maximum of 5 years imprisonment and whereby up to life imprisonment could be imposed for this new crime. Called “aggravated sexual assault”, this was defined as “a sexual assault that involves serious violence or the threat of serious violence or is such as to cause injury, humiliation or degradation of a grave nature to the person assaulted.” Since new elements were involved beyond those set out at common law, this, unlike the renaming of indecent assault as sexual assault, was a new offence. But,...