About this case:

• Citation:
  [2024] NICC 33
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Crown Court

Delivering judgment for the Crown Court, His Honour Judge Geoffrey Miller KC stated: “If I were to approach the sentencing exercise by weighting each charge proportionate to its seriousness the defendant would be facing a total sentence of several hundred years. In other jurisdictions such as those pertaining in most States in the USA, that would indeed be the appropriate approach, but that is not so here.”

Mr R Weir KC with Ms R Walsh KC appeared for the Crown instructed by the Public Prosecution Service and Mr N Hunt KC with Mr C Sherrard appeared for the defendant instructed by McLaughlin & Co.

Background

Reports were filed with police in Derbyshire relating to several child victims. The defendant’s IP address was identified as the source of the “catfishing” complained of, which involved the abuse, corruption and intimidation of the children.

On 27 and 28 March 2020, PSNI officers attended at the defendant’s home in Belfast to conduct a search of the property. Several items were seized and the defendant was arrested.

The defendant subsequently made a number of admissions and provided extensive detail of his crimes at interview with PSNI and made unanticipated additional admissions in respect of “RG”, a 30 year-old female with a diagnosis of autism and intellectual disability.  

Three bills of indictment were brought against the defendant. The defendant have pleaded guilty in each case, he came before the Crown Court for sentencing.

Evidence

In the first case, a 13 year-old girl “KA”, gave a victim statement which recounted that a male called “Louis”, the defendant, found her on Instagram. She told the defendant over Snapchat that she was nearly 14 and he confirmed that he was the same age and was at school in Chesterfield. KA and the defendant exchanged sexually explicit images and videos, until KA’s friends suggested that “Louis” was fake. 

The defendant goaded and threatened KA with violence, created a false profile of his “sister” for the purpose of sending further threats and sent all of the explicit images of KA to her friends. The defendant also created a sister “Wee Denny” inter alia to inform KA that “Louis” had attempted suicide (and later that he had died) and that the police would question KA in relation to same.

The defendant also took similar action under the guise of Wee Denny in relation to friends of KA, CW, JJ and TB, and accused them of complicity in the death of Louis to cajole them into sending explicit images of themselves.

The defendant also communicated with a male, BW, in the US on the Kik app, with the relevant chat log forming part of the evidence in the proceedings. The defendant exchanged extreme pornographic images and indecent images of children and of RG with a view to receiving further indecent images of children in return.

In the second case, the court heard similar evidence in relation to sexual communications with children, causing children to engage in sexual activity, attempting to arrange child prostitution, coercion and blackmail and possessing, creating and distributing indecent images of children in respect of nearly 40 child victims.

The third case concerned offences committed by the defendant against RG, who was incapable of consenting to sexual activity due to her diagnoses. RG could not give evidence but the defendant made several admissions to these offences, including taking and distributing images of RG to children and attempted rape. The defendant admitted to abusing RG since she was 18 or 19 years old.

The Crown Court

The court considered aggravating and mitigating factors in relation to the abuse of the defendant’s victims, finding: “The coercive control, mental torture of KA, leading she and others to humiliate themselves, all to satiate Andrews’ perverse sexual desires, amount to the core additional aggravating factors.”

As to mitigation, the court acknowledged that the defendant had a significant history of poor mental health with several diagnosed conditions, noting that nonetheless, his poor compliance with his medication regime and voluntary recreational drug use exacerbated his desire for sexual activity. The court found: “The admissions made at interview, including to offences of which, at the time, the police had no knowledge, represent the most salient and compelling mitigating factors.”

Judge Miller considered the defendant’s history, noting that he had been placed in care as a child due to issues in the family home and his suggestion that he had been the victim of an attempted sexual assault perpetrated by his father. 

The judge also recounted the medical evidence tendered to the court to the effect that the defendant struggled with several severe mental health disorders, but did not accept his claim that his use of cocaine rendered him unaware of what he was doing, or that it lured him into a “false sense of security”.

In respect of the defendant’s attitude to his offending, the court emphasised that “it is apparent that there is a disjunct between the defendant’s acknowledgement of guilt for what he had done and his lack of acceptance of what that means. He repeatedly asserted ‘I’m not a sex offender’, ‘I’m not a paedophile’, yet he would then go on to describe in lurid detail what he had done.”

Judge Miller found the abuse of RG “chilling”, noting: “The abuse he committed against her in his home on multiple occasions over several years displays a depravity that is difficult to comprehend, and which is sickening. She is utterly vulnerable, a child in a woman’s body, unable to communicate other than with sounds and a very few words and severely physically disabled.”

The court considered that where all but 17 of the 130 offences to which the defendant pleaded guilty were specified under either or both Schedule 1 and Part 2 of Schedule 2 to the Criminal Justice (NI) Order 2008, it was required to determine whether the defendant was to be sentenced as a dangerous offender within the meaning of Article 15 thereof.

The judge had regard to R v EB [2010] NICA 40, in which the then Lord Chief Justice noted that the assessment of dangerousness is dynamic and that sentencing should be within 16 weeks of the convening of a ‘risk management meeting’, which in this case had occurred in June 2024.

Nevertheless, the Crown Court determined that “his lack of internal control to avoid committing further serious sexual offending if the opportunity arose leaves me in no doubt that Andrews does pose a significant risk of serious harm and that he meets the criteria of dangerousness and must therefore be sentenced accordingly”.

Turning to the issue of sentencing, the court commented: “The defendant’s catalogue of offending in this case is prolific and chilling in equal measure. Precisely how many victims were caught up in his web of deceit is unknown… He knew precisely what he was doing and didn’t stop until he was caught.”

The court also considered the abuse of RG “sickening” and noted that it was required to decide whether an extended custodial sentence would be appropriate to protect the public from the risk posed by the defendant.

Having regard to the guilty pleas entered by the defendant and the full admissions made at the initial police interviews, the court allowed a discount of 25 per cent on the sentence to be imposed in respect of the 130 offences.

Judge Miller highlighted: “If I were to approach the sentencing exercise by weighting each charge proportionate to its seriousness the defendant would be facing a total sentence of several hundred years. In other jurisdictions such as those pertaining in most States in the USA, that would indeed be the appropriate approach, but that is not so here.”

Instead, the judge applied a headline figure to the most serious charge in each of the three bills of indictment.

Conclusion

Accordingly, the High Court imposed inter alia a sentence of 36 years’ imprisonment, discounted by 25 per cent to 27 years, and adding five years by way of an extended licence, with the effect that the defendant’s minimum term of imprisonment will be 13.5 years subject to evaluation by Parole Commissioners.

The King v David Andrews [2024] NICC 33