COMMUNITY ORDERS

A three-year community order imposed on an offender for multiple offences of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity was replaced with a term of three years’ imprisonment. The manipulative nature, frequency and persistence of the offending, targeting vulnerable victims including two under 13, required an immediate custodial sentence even though the offender had voluntarily sought help for his behaviour.

It had been open to a jury to be satisfied on the evidence that alleged historic child sexual abuse had continued into the period on the indictment. It was not open to the Court of Appeal to review the evidence and come to a different conclusion.

The court quashed a sentence of 14 months’ imprisonment imposed after an offender’s guilty plea to outraging public decency by taking video footage underneath women’s skirts without their knowledge. A community order with a requirement to attend a sex offender programme was more likely to lead to the offender’s rehabilitation than a custodial sentence and would therefore best serve the interests of the public.

It had not been appropriate to impose a custodial sentence upon an offender for offences of voyeurism, given the nature of the offence and the offender’s psychiatric state; a community rehabilitation and penalty order was, in the circumstances, more appropriate.