Judge describes lack of rape sentencing guidelines as bizarre

A judge has described the lack of sentencing guidelines in rape cases as “somewhat bizarre”.

Ms Justice Úna Ní Raifeartaigh made her comments during the sentencing of a man convicted for the repeated rape of his granddaughter. She imposed a five year prison sentence on Christopher Redmond (74) after noting he has a profound cognitive impairment that is slowly worsening.

Redmond of Rathvilly Drive, Finglas, Dublin was convicted by a jury at the Central Criminal Court of four counts of rape and five counts of sexual assault of Leanne Murphy on dates between January 2002 and May, 2004.

The attacks all took place at the Tolka Valley pitch and putt club on Ballyboggan Road in Finglas, where Redmond worked.

The victim, now aged 23, was between seven and nine at the time and had waived her right to anonymity so her abuser could be named.

She went to the Garda in 2012. Redmond denied all the charges but was convicted after a trial last February.

Ms Justice Ní ­ Raifeartaigh set a headline sentence of 15 years but reduced this to 10 years on the basis of an absence of previous offences and his age.

She further reduced this to five years after considering his progressive cognitive impairments. The impairment does not go back to the time of offending or his time of arrest.

Astonishing

Redmond was assessed by a consultant forensic psychiatrist from the Central Mental Hospital who concluded it was unlikely he was pretending. He concluded that the cognitive decline could leave Redmond vulnerable to other prisoners.

She said the Supreme Court has said that rape offending should be punished with an immediate and substantial custodial sentence but that there was no information about sentencing in past cases. She noted "this may seem astonishing".

She said while there was a lot of authority as to general sentencing principles there was very little in the way of actual figures.

“One judge’s substantial could be four years and another’s could be 14 years. It’s somewhat bizarre that an area that is so sensitive has so little in the way of guidance for a trial judge,” she said.

She said sentencing of rape offences was “highly unregulated” and this was a policy matter that had been much discussed. She said it was remarkable that nothing was said or given to a judge in these cases by way of figures and that the current case was typical in this regard.

The court heard the child would go to help her grandfather at the club. During what the child thought was a game involving coins, he would molest her and make her touch his genitals.

He promised her the money for sweets and told her the abuse was their little secret. The woman said that she felt excruciating pain during the rapes and described her “soul leaving my body each time”.

Confused and vulnerable

She would ask Redmond to “stop, don’t do it” but he would tell the child “everything was alright, everything would be okay”.

The woman said she grew up feeling scared, confused and vulnerable. She began self harming at the age of 10 to release the pain inside her and was drinking heavily as a teenager.

“I’ve turned into such an angry person. I’ll never know the person I could have been. My anxiety and depression destroyed me,” she said.

“I thought he loved me. It took years to realise he brainwashed me,” she said, adding that her parents trusted her grandfather and he betrayed them and they blame themselves.

She said on a regular basis during her life she has felt like she wanted to die, adding that “the trauma overshadowed the good childhood they [her parents] had worked to give me”.

“If you could see the pain on my skin it would be scars everywhere, that’s how it feels,” she told the court.

Ms Ní ­ Raifeartaigh said Ms Murphy’s statement was a searing depiction of the effects of violation of the physical and psychological integrity of a child.

She told Ms Murphy that she was a survivor and praised her courage in getting into the witness box during the trial and giving her evidence. She told her that neither she, her parents or her siblings should take any responsibility for the abuse by Redmond.