The appropriate total sentence for two offences of sexual assault and one of blackmail was an immediate custodial term of three years. When imposing a suspended sentence of 18 months’ imprisonment, the sentencing judge had given too much weight to mitigating factors, including the fact that the offender had Asperger’s Syndrome, and insufficient weight to […]
The court upheld an offender’s convictions for indecent assault and attempting to inflict grievous bodily harm committed against his younger brother when they were both under 18. It could not be said that the manner in which the trial was conducted by the offender’s own counsel was so flawed as to render his conviction unsafe.
A conviction for sexual assault was quashed in circumstances where it was not clear that the jury would have reached the same verdict had it been aware of fresh evidence, admitted on appeal, that the offender suffered from Asperger’s syndrome.
The Appeal Division of the Isle of Man had been entitled to conclude that an autistic man’s conviction for sexual assault was safe. The expert evidence adduced by the offender about his condition did not lead to a different conclusion because the evidence, as a whole, supported conviction.
