A MAN who sexually abused his teenage niece has had his five year prison sentence reduced to six months on appeal, partly on the grounds that he would have got a lighter sentence had he been tried at the time the offences occurred.
The Progressive Democrats spokeswoman on justice Ms Liz O'Donnell, said the decision appeared to be the "unravelling of justice to a ridiculous extent".
The head of the Rape Crisis Centre, Ms Olive Braiden, said it was "outrageous" that an offender should get such a light sentence, "no matter what the legal reasons are".
Mr Justice Keane said in the Court of Criminal Appeal that the trial judge had erred in giving insufficient weight to issues arising from the lapse of time since the offences were committed. These included the man's good behaviour in the intervening years and the fact that if he had been prosecuted in the early 1980s, when public awareness about sex abuse was far more limited than now, he would have received a much less severe sentence.
Legal sources said the judgment, which they expected would serve as a guideline on sentencing, appeared to be consistent with precedent and with recent Supreme Court rulings.
Ms Braiden said the case highlighted the need for direct legal representation for victims in sexual abuse cases, whose interests were not fully represented by the DPP.
Mr Justice Keane said the case had come to light in early 1995.
He said the public was now "acutely conscious of the major evil in society represented by the sexual abuse of children." But the criminal justice system could not be indifferent to the fact that an accused person would have received a more lenient sentence had he not been deprived of an expeditious trial.
In imposing sentence, he added, the court must consider not only the consequences of the uncle's conduct on his niece but also the consequences of the conviction for the uncle himself.
