The Court of Criminal Appeal has adjourned an attempt by the DPP to increase a seven-year sentence, with two years suspended, imposed on a Cork man who sexually assaulted 16 children over 16 months in fast-food restaurants, swimming pools and sports grounds in the city.
The DPP sought a review of the first seven-year sentence after James Lombard was given an additional seven-year sentence in November 2005 to run consecutively with the first term imposed in May 2005 - giving a total jail term of 14 years.
Lombard sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl on February 20th, 2005 while he was on bail on the original charges.
The trial court heard Lombard had asked the girl to help him find a lost puppy after which he assaulted her in the grounds of a convent.
Ms Marjorie Farrelly, for the DPP, told the CCA yesterday the director was appealing against the leniency of the original sentence imposed on Lombard (37), Blarney Street, Cork.
Blaise O'Carroll SC, for Lombard, said his client was appealing against the severity of the seven-year sentence imposed in November for the offence on the 10-year-old girl, to which offence Lombard had pleaded guilty.
Mr Justice Brian McCracken, presiding over the three-judge CCA, said it seemed sensible to hear the DPP's appeal against leniency and Lombard's appeal against severity of sentence together.
The court adjourned both appeals until a later date.
Cork Circuit Criminal Court was told last year that Lombard was convicted in his absence in February 2005 of sexually assaulting seven boys and that in April 2005 he had pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting another seven boys and two girls aged between four and 10.
The court was told that the assaults occurred between May 18th, 1993, and August 11th, 1994, and many took place in the toilets of fast-food restaurants in Cork and involved Lombard targeting young boys on their own.
It was in relation to those offences he received the first seven-year sentence.
Lombard was first arrested by gardaí in September 1994 but fled to England where gardaí located him in jail serving a sentence under a false name.
He was extradited to Ireland in June 2004 and went on trial last February.
However, he then went on the run for two weeks on the last day of his trial before he was apprehended again by gardaí at Carrigaline in south Cork on February 28th. During the first trial, Lombard told the court he wished to get help for his paedophile tendencies.