Fine Gael is backing calls for an appeal to a four-year sentence handed out to a man (32) who raped and battered a woman in April 2002.
"I support the calls made by Mary Crilly, the director of the Cork Sexual Violence Centre, calling for the appeal of the leniency of a four-year sentence handed down to a Cork man convicted of raping and assaultinmg a woman in the city in 2002," said the Fine Gael Justice spokesman, Mr Jim O'Keefe.
Mr O'Keefe said he believed the sentence was too lenient and supported calls for an appeal.
Yesterday at the Central Criminal Court, Paul Buckley, of Baker's Road, Gurranabraher, was jailed for four years by Mr Justice Paul Butler.
He was found guilty by a jury in July 2004 of raping and assaulting the woman, causing her harm, between 10.00 p.m. on April 7th and 2.00 a.m. on April 8th, 2002, in what the jury was told was "a leafy suburb of Cork".
In court, the victim (27) said: "It is almost three years since you brutally attacked and raped me and as if that was not bad enough, you pleaded not guilty and I had to take the stand and relive it all again. I will never ever forgive you for that."
Under cross-examination, he denied that he throttled her after pushing her to the ground in the back garden of a house and threatened to kill her if she was not quiet.
"All I have to say is that I am sorry I hit that girl. My apologies, like," he said.