Title: DPP -v- Adam Keane COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEALJudgment delivered by the Chief Justice, Mr Justice John Murray on December 19th, 2007. Composition of court: Mr Justice Murray, Mr Justice Charleton and Ms Justice Irvine.
JUDGMENTThe court quashed a suspended sentence of three years' imprisonment and substituted a sentence of ten years, with the final three suspended, in a case where the accused had been found guilty by a jury after pleading not guilty to the rape of a young mother of three in her home.
BACKGROUNDThe offence took place in May 2005, when the accused, Adam Keane, entered the victim's home by the back door shortly after midnight. She was asleep upstairs, and her three young children were sleeping in bedrooms nearby. Keane went upstairs, turned off the lights, got into bed with the woman and had sex with her. She woke up and after a few minutes realised the man was not her partner, panicked and got out of bed. She turned on the light and recognised the perpetrator as the boyfriend of a friend. She ran out of the house and contacted the Gardai. Keane left the house and went to his girlfriend's house nearby, where he was found by the Gardai and questioned.
He said he had no recollection of the incident, and pleaded not guilty through the trial, though he acknowledged that if his DNA was on the woman he must have had sex with her. He said he had had a lot to drink and had taken drugs.
Following his conviction by the jury, the trial judge, Mr Justice Carney, made substantial reference to a previous case, known as NY, where the accused had pleaded guilty to having sex with a woman who was asleep at a party they both attended, and where he had imposed a three-year sentence, of which the Court of Criminal Appeal later suspended all but seven months.
He said that in this present case: "I would not be comfortable if I sentenced this man in the light of what happened in the NY case," and went on to impose a sentence of three years' imprisonment, which he suspended on the basis that the accused would be of good behaviour and enter a bond of €1,000.
Mr Justice Carney went on to say: "The Director is very trigger happy in relation to appeals on the grounds of undue leniency. So it is quite probably that this is not the end of the matter."
Following the conviction and sentencing, the victim in the case gave up her right to anonymity to condemn publicly the sentence and describe the devastating effect both the original rape and the sentence had on her and her family.
DECISIONReferring at the outset to the judge's remarks about the DPP, the Court of Criminal Appeal commented: "The court considers this reference by the learned trial judge to have been unfortunate as it may be understood as trivialising or lacking in the respect which is due to the process of appeals designated as appropriate by the Oireachtas. . . . A court should avoid using language that might be taken to suggest the denigration of the exercise of a statutory function of appeal. Moreover no finding was made or any conclusion pointed to which could in any sense justify the use of language suggesting that the right of appeal was being abused, which in any event is essentially an issue for the Court of Criminal Appeal.
"On the contrary, the Director's application in this case far from being an abuse of the process of the court is, as the court's conclusions set out below in this judgment demonstrate, one which is well founded."
The court stressed the importance of the role of an appeal court. "Courts of appeal have long been seen as an important and essential element in calibrating the scales of justice and thus ensuring confidence in the judicial process. Legal systems provide for an appeal from courts of first instance not least because it is not assumed that courts of first instance are infallible no more than it is assumed courts of appeal are. There is no human institution that enjoys such a brave assumption."
The court then distinguished this case from that of NY, referred to by the trial judge. It pointed out that NY had attended a party where he had fallen asleep with a young woman with whom he had intercourse while she slept. He immediately regretted what he had done, left a note apologising, admitted what had happened to the Gardai and pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity, thereby sparing the victim the trauma of giving evidence. She had made a good recovery from the assault a year later. The Court of Criminal Appeal had suspended the bulk of his sentence because the trial judge, again Mr Justice Carney, had erred in not allowing for the possibility of exceptional circumstances where a suspended sentence might be appropriate.
In contrast, Keane had invaded the home of a young mother at home with her sleeping children, had raped her, had denied all knowledge of the rape and maintained a not guilty plea throughout. The victim and her family suffered severely from what had happened, and had been forced to leave their home of nine years by it.
The court outlined a number of previous cases where the courts had emphasised the gravity of the crime of rape, and the normal requirement of a custodial sentence. After quashing the three year suspended sentence, it imposed a sentence of ten years, with three years suspended because of the youth of the perpetrator and to encourage his rehabilitation.
The full text of this judgment is available on www.courts.ie.
Solicitors: Chief Prosecution Solicitor (for the DPP); Cahir and Co, Ennis, Co Clare (for the respondent).