JUDGES in rape trials must take account of a guilty plea when sentencing offenders. This principle does have advantages for victims, says Ms Olive Braiden, director of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre.
"It means the victim is believed and that is the most important thing. The case proceeds quickly and the victim doesn't have to give evidence.
"But the downside is that a guilty plea is a big mitigating factor," she says. "It looks as if the judges can never give life. That's a real problem and has to be changed.
"What is very positive in a life sentence is that they are monitored when they get out. If they re-offend in any way, they are on the books," she adds.
But, where men serve sentences of a specific duration, there is no monitoring when they leave.
The mitigating effect of a guilty plea was seen in the recent case of Michael Bambrick, who killed two women by tying them up and gagging them during sex.
On 26th July, at the Central Criminal Court, he was sentenced to 18 years' penal servitude by Mr Justice Carney for manslaughter. The judge said he would prefer to have jailed Bambrick for life. Bambrick's guilty plea was one factor which prevented him from doing so.
The problem from the community's point of view was that Bambrick would be subject to "no controls" on release with remission, which is a matter of right, from a determinate sentence. On release on licence from a life sentence Bambrick would be subject to controls, he said.
The most controversial instance of the application of the principle occurred last year when the sentence on the man who abused the girl in the X case was reduced by the Court of Criminal Appeal.
The man was given seven years' penal servitude the previous year by Dublin Circuit Criminal Court on two counts of unlawful carnal knowledge of a girl under 15 years of age. The two sentences were to run consecutively.
In the 1995 judgment on the appeal, Mr Justice O'Flaherty noted the argument by the man's counsel that "sufficient credit was not given for the plea of guilty tendered by the accused", explaining one "of the grounds for the sentence reduction.
While a plea of guilty must be taken into account, it has been specifically referred to in a number of cases this year
. Bruce Thompson, who sexually abused boys over an 18 year period, was jailed for three years. ,"His defence counsel said Thompson "always owned up and indicated he would plead guilty. The Supreme Court recognised this was a mitigating factor because the victims were aware they were believed and would not have to testify to a trial."
. A Tipperary man whose daughter considered hanging herself because he sexually abused her was jailed for 2 1/2 years. The judge said the maximum sentence for sexual assault was five years' imprisonment. As directed by the Court of Criminal Appeal, he also had to take into consideration the defendant's guilty plea. He suspended the final 18 months of the 2 1/2year sentence.
. A Dublin man who raped a woman (23) was jailed for seven years but the case was listed for review on June 10th, 1997. His early plea of guilty worked in his favour.
. A Meath father (57) who sexually assaulted his daughter's friend for five years was jailed for four years. His defence counsel told the court "his client's guilty plea saved his victims the trauma of giving evidence".
. A Dublin man who sexually abused his two sons for almost a decade was jailed for seven years. The judge said "the only good thing in the case was his guilty plea".
. A Kilkenny parish priest was jailed for eight years for sexual offences against boys. Supt Vincent Duff agreed that "the priest indicated at an early stage that he would not put his victims through the trauma of having to give evidence in court".