A man who battered a teenage girl until she was unrecognisable and in a separate incident tried to strangle a former girlfriend has had his jail sentence increased.
Stephen Cahoon (27), who was originally sentenced to three years for the assault on the teenage girl, was yesterday given an additional two years and three months by the Court of Appeal in Belfast. His victim, Ms Lynne McGall, who is now 21, said after the court hearing: "Twenty years would not be long enough for me."
Women's organisations in Northern Ireland expressed outrage last October when Cahoon, from Rockview Terrace, Moneymore, Co Derry, was sentenced for a total of three years.
The DPP referred the case to the Attorney General, who decided the sentence was unduly lenient and asked the Court of Appeal to review it.
Yesterday the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Robert Carswell, said Ms McGall was savagely attacked as she walked home alone on a country road in the early hours.
"The assault must have been kept up for quite a significant length of time, and the evidence shows the offender used some sort of weapon to inflict the injuries," he said.
"Items of clothing were torn from her. Young and vulnerable, she was left alone in a dark field, distressed and disorientated, to find her own way home, with no help at hand."
Sir Robert, sitting with Lord Justice Campbell and Mr Justice McLaughlin, added: "We can see no mitigating circumstances to reduce the blame which must attach to a person who commits such a vicious assault."
He said the proper sentence should have been five years, but allowing for the issue of double jeopardy, they had decided to impose a four-year term.
The judges then considered a string of 13 assaults which Cahoon had admitted on Ms Samantha Brown, the mother of his child. At the original trial he was given a concurrent sentence of 15 months for the assaults and threatening to kill her.
The Chief Justice said Cahoon had tried to strangle Ms Brown with the cord of a dressing gown until the cord snapped.
If the sentences remained concurrent, he said, they would be below the level of sanction which the law should impose. The judges ordered that the sentences should run consecutively, making a total of five years and three months.