Court adds four years to sentence for rape

The Court of Criminal Appeal (CCA) has, at the request of the DPP, increased from 10 to 14 years a sentence imposed on a man for the "very vicious and frightening" rape at knife-point over four hours of a young woman in Dublin's inner city.

The rape occurred two years after James Donohue, now aged 40, was freed from prison having served time for an earlier rape.

The woman was asleep in bed when Donohue entered her flat in the north inner city on May 17th, 2001. He had consumed alcohol, and used a steak knife to compel her to have sex. He raped her four times.

In increasing the sentence yesterday, Mr Justice Fennelly, presiding over the three-judge CCA, said the court believed the trial judge erred in principle in giving insufficient weight to Donohue's previous record.

In sentencing there was also a need to protect the public, and Donohue had a propensity to commit rape, especially when he had consumed alcohol.

He said Donohue was conscious of that himself, and had talked about undergoing some chemical process or castration.

The victim of this rape had suffered severe trauma, and Donohue had only pleaded guilty on the day of his trial. While he had admitted having sex with the woman soon after the rape, he maintained it was consensual until the day of trial.

The CCA believed the 10-year sentence imposed was inadequate, and would replace it with a 14-year sentence to date from March 21st, 2003, when the 10-year sentence was imposed.

Earlier, Mr Kieran O'Loughlin SC, for the DPP, argued the sentence imposed on Donohue was unduly lenient given that the rape occurred just over two years after he was freed from prison having served eight years of a 14-year term for another rape.

Donohue had also been jailed for five years on indecent assault charges.

This was a "very serious rape at knife-point", he said. Over a four-hour period, the victim was subject, in her room at the dead of the night, to a very vicious and frightening incident.

While Donohue had pleaded guilty, he only did so on the day of trial. However, it appeared the trial judge may have wrongly believed the guilty plea was made at an earlier stage.

A sentence should reflect the gravity of the offence and, where a person committed a second similar offence, the sentence imposed for that offence should be as high or higher than that imposed for the first offence. There was an error in principle in light of the man's previous history.

Opposing the DPP's appeal, Mr Peter Finlay SC, for Donohue, said his client was a deeply troubled man who had asked to receive chemical treatment for his offending behaviour. A clinical psychiatrist regarded that request as serious.

Mr Finlay said there was no error in principle in the 10-year term. He said the trial judge, Mr Justice O'Higgins, was an experienced trial judge, and had heard all the evidence and weighed it up.