DPP's decision to appeal four-year sentence for rape welcomed

One of the country's busiest sexual assault centres has welcomed a decision by the Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal the leniency of a four-year sentence handed down to a man who raped a woman and "left her for dead".

The director of the Cork Sexual Violence Centre, Mary Crilly, said the decision by the DPP to appeal the sentence handed down to Paul Buckley last month was very welcome as it could help to encourage other rape and sexual violence victims to come forward.

"To my mind the sentence should match the crime and I don't believe that two years was appropriate for what happened in this case. This was a very vicious and violent attack where he left the woman for dead," said Ms Crilly. "I welcome it for the victim and I also welcome it for others who might be reporting similar crimes. It shows the DPP has this power and that he is willing to use it to try and ensure that the severity of the sentence matches the severity of the crime," she said.

Buckley (32), a salesman from Baker's Road, Gurranabraher, Cork was served with appeal papers this week by gardaí after the DPP decided to appeal the four-year sentence handed down by Mr Justice Paul Butler at the Central Criminal Court on January 27th.

Last July, a jury of nine men and two women took six hours to find Buckley unanimously guilty of raping and assaulting the woman, causing her harm between 10pm on April 7th and 2am on April 8th, 2002 in what the jury heard "was a leafy suburb of Cork".

Prior to sentencing, Buckley's now 27-year-old victim told the court that she hoped he would receive a sentence that "matches the sentence that you have imposed on me for the rest of my life".

Det Sgt Denis Cahill said the woman told gardaí that Buckley had tried to choke her and he said that he would kill her if she did not stop shouting. She said she thought she was going to die.

The attack happened after she had left the Franciscan Well brewery on the North Mall in Cork.

Buckley had claimed the woman had consented to sex. He denied that he had raped her but admitted hitting her a number of times.