Court of Appeal: 22-year-old man who raped his 74-year-old neighbour loses appeal against sentence

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The man was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment, which he said was “out of kilter” with other cases involving “one off incidents of sexual offending”.

However, Mr Justice John Hedigan described the case as being one of the most serious to come before the Court, and said that the severe sentence for such an egregious offence did not fall outside the range available to the sentencing judge.

Background

In September 2014, 22-year-old Anthony Hussey broke into his 74-year-old neighbour’s home using a key which had been entrusted to his parents, and violently raped her. The Court heard that Mr Hussey had been out drinking with friends, and had first woken his victim up when he started banging on her windows at around 6am. The victim phoned a neighbour for help, who took Mr Hussey home and reassured the victim. Shortly after, the victim was confronted by Mr Hussey in her bedroom wearing a balaclava and dark clothing, who told her that if she screamed, there would be “three more” people waiting.

In her victim impact statement, the woman described her inability to overcome the terror of being abused and raped by the son of her neighbour, stating that she often doesn’t want to go on living. She said that her “…lower body feels hollowed out, the vagina and rectum scratched out and sore”, and described how the assault continues to have a devastating effect on her daily life.

Mr Hussey pleaded guilty to the offence, and was sentenced to 13 years’ imprisonment.

Grounds of Appeal

Mr Hussey argued that the sentencing judge failed to articulate, and “appeared dismissive of mitigating factors” in the case. Considering cases such as DPP v. Griffin IECCA 62 which involved a 15 year sentence for an accused who repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted a child over an 8 year period; Mr Hussey said that his sentence was “significantly out of kilter with sentences imposed for one off incidents of sexual offending”.

Mr Hussey submitted that the sentence imposed was excessive in all the circumstances, that the trial judge ought to have introduced some element of a suspended sentence to further incentivise rehabilitation, and placed insufficient weight on:

Response from the DPP

In response, the DPP submitted that the sentencing judge did articulate all mitigating factors, that he considered psychologists’ and probation reports, and made a reduction in the headline sentence of 16-18 years to one of 13 – which the DPP said was a significant reduction in the circumstances.

Furthermore, the DPP submitted that there were very different aggravating factors in Mr Hussey’s case than those in cases of child rape, such as DPP v Griffin. Aggravating factors in Mr Hussey’s case included:

It was submitted that sentences of 12 years or more should be for rape offences “…that are aggravated by circumstances of extreme violence or degradation”. Furthermore, in DPP v Tiernan IR 250, a rape case involving extreme violence; the Supreme Court reduced a sentence of 21 years to 17 years to allow for rehabilitation, but described rape as “a gross attack upon the human dignity and the bodily integrity of a woman and a violation of her human and constitutional rights”, and stated that it “…must attract very severe legal sanctions”.

In the Court of Appeal, Mr Mr Justice Hedigan stated that the present case was “one of the most serious cases of rape to come before this Court”. Mr Justice Hedigan said that it was scarcely possible to imagine the victim’s terror when faced firstly with Mr Hussey’s violent attempt to break into her home, and after being helped by a neighbour to find Mr Hussey confronting her inside her home dressed in dark clothing and a balaclava. Mr Justice Hedigan described the woman’s ordeal as being “truly the stuff of nightmares”, being subjected to a “violent, degrading series of rapes” which clearly had devastating psychological consequences.

Mr Justice Hedigan was satisfied that the sentencing judge considered both the aggravating and mitigating factors in arriving at the 13 year sentence imposed; indeed the headline sentence was identified as 16-18 years, and 5 years “off the top end of that range by way of mitigation” equated to over 25% reduction.

Stating the such an egregious offence was sure to and did receive a severe sentence, Mr Justice Hedigan said that it did not fall outside the range available to the sentencing judge and therefore dismissed Mr Hussey’s appeal.

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