The majority of sexual assaults that led to top-range prison sentences were perpetrated by people unknown to the victim. The finding indicates that judges may perceive “stranger rape” as being more serious and harmful, according to a new study.
An analysis of 108 court cases which resulted in sentences of 15 years to life imprisonment found that 65 per cent of adult victims were attacked by a stranger, while a further 18 per cent were attacked by someone they met within 24 hours.
The cases, which spanned from 1985 to 2022 and involved 230 victims in total, were analysed by Dr Diarmuid Griffin, a lecturer in criminology and criminal law at the University of Galway.
Dr Griffin said: “It may be that ‘stranger rape’ cases are reaching the sentencing courts on a more frequent basis than other relationship-based sexual violence and this may partly explain their prevalence in this study.
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“It is also possible that when deliberating on sentencing outcomes, judges may be perceiving ‘stranger rape’ as being more serious and harmful.”
Sexual violence offences warranting such sentences were also frequently committed in a public place and referred to by judges as a “random attack”.
The research explores the factors that influence judges to impose sentences of 15 years to life imprisonment. Sentences of these duration are reserved for “truly egregious” offending, according to sentencing judges.
Other factors which significantly influenced sentencing outcomes included the volume of offending, the criminal history of the offenders, all of whom were men, and concerns relating to the risk of reoffending, with some perpetrators described as a “grave threat to the public”.
In the vast majority of cases (94 per cent), the offender had been convicted of multiple offences, with the volume of offending being the most significant factor emerging at each sentencing hearing.
Half of all cases involved multiple victims of sexual violence, while almost two-thirds (63 per cent) involved multiple incidents.
Other factors influencing the top range sentences included the level of harm caused to victims, both physical and psychological, which was referenced as being critically important by sentencing judges.
Serious violence, including the use of weapons and death threats, featured in more than half of the cases, which sentencing judges viewed as significantly increasing the culpability of the defendant.
There were 159 victims among the 63 cases concerning child sexual abuse, two-thirds of whom were girls and one-third boys.
Among the factors influencing the sentencing was that multiple offences were committed in all cases, with one in six involving 50 offences or more.
A “highly significant aggravating factor” was that the perpetrator abused a position of trust “or misused a dominant position within a family”, with the perpetrator being either a father or stepfather to a victim in 45 per cent of instances.
Outside of this, there was some form of relationship with the child or family members in almost all cases which warranted a top range sentence.
Other aggravating factors warranting the sentences of 15 years to life included “additional and gratuitous sexual perversions”, the use of death threats and the use of implements of violence.
The analysis indicates a “broad consensus” across decision-makers regarding factors that warrant such sentences, Dr Griffin said.
However, an important component in this consistency in sentencing is that sexual offence cases are almost exclusively dealt with by a small group of judges who sit at the Central Criminal Court, and whose workload is largely confined to sexual offences, he said.
Dr Griffin’s book, Sentencing Serious Sex Offenders – How Judges Decide When Discretion is Wide, will be launched on Friday by Minister for Justice, Jim O’Callaghan.
