An elderly married man who had been given a suspended sentence for raping his sister and indecently assaulting his niece was jailed for five years by the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday.
The DPP had appealed against the leniency of the suspended five-year sentences imposed on the man, who is now almost 70 years old, at the Central Criminal Court in June 1995.
The rape offences dated back to almost 40 years ago, while the indecent assault charges related to the late 1980s.
Giving the judgment of the three-judge appeal court yesterday, Mr Justice O'Flaherty said it appeared the rape charges in relation to the man's sister were "sample" counts because the interference had gone on for a very long period, spanning the time from when the sister was nine through to her mid-teens.
The indecent assault on the man's niece took place when she was about 16 and went on for a considerable length of time. They had quite a devastating effect on her, the judge said.
The sister had kept the abuse secret until the niece eventually complained. The sister then felt a great deal of remorse that she had not divulged the crimes to the authorities earlier, which might possibly have saved the niece from the man's depredations.
Mr Justice O'Flaherty recalled that the trial judge had congratulated the sister for taking the step she had in bringing the man's conduct to the attention of the authorities for the very good reason that she wanted to protect society from people like him in future. In the trial judge's view, the sister had done the right thing and that sort of action was to be encouraged "to protect people" from people like the man.
The trial judge had sentenced the man to five years' penal servitude on the rape counts and five years' imprisonment on the indecent assault counts, to run concurrently, but the sentences were suspended.
The Court of Criminal Appeal concluded that it would be impossible to justify the imposition of suspended sentences in the "appalling" circumstances of the crimes.
"They involved a total breach of trust, committed against his sister when she was so young all those years ago, but repeated comparatively recently in 1988 against his niece.
"It is clear that while the victim of the original rape offences has tended to put the trauma behind her, that certainly is not so of the niece," said Mr Justice O'Flaherty.
The judge said one could not but feel sorry for the man's immediate family. But as prosecution counsel had urged upon the court, there was a public interest too that rape offences and, indeed, all offences of a sexual nature against women, must attract very serious punishment.
Occasions when a suspended sentence would be justified must, as laid down previously by the Supreme Court, be limited to those featuring "wholly exceptional circumstances".
The court was not able to bring the circumstances of the present case within that dispensation.
Mr Justice O'Flaherty said the court took into account all the matters the trial judge had taken into account, giving particular emphasis to the age of the accused and the fact that once a sentence was imposed on appeal - as opposed to a sentence imposed at trial - and in the further circumstances that a considerable period had elapsed since the trial, that involved an additional punishment.
The proper punishment in the case would have been in the region of six to 10 years' imprisonment for both the rapes and indecent assaults.
The judge said the appeal court would allow the sentences of five years to stand and to run concurrently but they could not be suspended. They must be served and would date from the date of trial on May 8th, 1997. The accused would be entitled to appropriate remission from that date.