DPP asked to appeal leniency of four-year term for rape and assault

The director of the Cork Sexual Violence Centre, Ms Mary Crilly, yesterday called on the Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal the leniency of a four-year sentence handed down to a Cork man convicted of raping and assaulting a woman in the city in 2002.

Ms Crilly said the sentence Paul Buckley (32) received for the rape of the then 25-year-old woman in the garden of a house in a Cork suburb on April 8th, 2002, was far too lenient.

"I think the severity of the sentence needs to match the severity of the crime - I think in this case it was a vicious, brutal rape.

"There's no question about it - this was a young woman who was almost left to die, who was brutalised, raped and beaten up," said Ms Crilly.