CHILDREN

A judge’s refusal to hold a fact-finding hearing to clarify whether a father, who had been allowed unsupervised contact with his children, had committed indecent assault many years earlier could not be criticised.

A judge had been wrong to commit a child for trial in the Crown Court for a sexual offence because, taking into account the child’s previous good character and the fact that he was 11 years old at the time of the offence, there was no real prospect that the Crown Court would exercise its powers under the Powers of Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000 s.91 to impose a custodial sentence.

The purpose of the legislation making it a crime punishable with imprisonment to have sexual relations with those under 16 years was to protect those under 16. A reduction of punishment on the basis that the victim encouraged the commission of the offence was wrong. The victim’s vulnerability was an aggravating rather than a mitigating feature.

A sentence of 14 years’ imprisonment was appropriate in the case of a 63-year-old man who had been convicted of numerous sexual offences against three teenage boys.

Where a family member had been convicted of the indecent assault of two children of the family, notwithstanding inconsistencies and conflicts in the evidence of the complainants, the judge had been entitled to leave the matter to the jury. In her directions to the jury, the judge had dealt fairly and clearly with the issue of alleged collusion, contamination and cross-admissibility, and had given commonsense guidance when reminding the jury that it was dealing with the evidence of children: the conviction was not unsafe as a result of the judge’s comments.

A notional determinate sentence that equated to 30 years’ imprisonment before a one-third reduction for guilty pleas, which had formed the basis for calculating the specified minimum term of a life sentence imposed for 28 counts relating to the sexual abuse of five boys, was excessive and reduced to 20 years.

Convictions for five counts of rape and one count of indecent assault were safe, as there were no particular circumstances that required the judge to have given directions relating to the age of the victims, delay, an elaborated good character direction, or a recent complaint direction.

A community order with a requirement to attend a sex offender’s programme and attend probation appointments for three years imposed on a 72-year-old offender who had pleaded guilty to six offences of indecent assault on females under 13, which had taken place up to 40 years previously, was not unduly lenient and a non-custodial sentence was in the proper range of sentences available to the judge who had exercised extreme caution in assessing the circumstances of the case.

The judge had erred in principle in imposing a sentence of imprisonment for public protection in respect of the appellant’s sexual assault of a child under the girl of 13; repetitive violent or sexual offending at a relatively low level without serious harm did not of itself give rise to a significant risk of serious harm in the future.