A man jailed for four years for rape had his sentence increased by three years by the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday.
The Director of Public Prosecutions had submitted that the original sentence, imposed last January, was too lenient.
Paul Buckley (33), a salesman, of Gurranebraher, Cork, was found guilty last year of raping and assaulting a woman in April 2002. He was sentenced to four years' imprisonment.
Prior to his sentence following trial, his now 27-year-old victim had told the Central Criminal Court that she hoped he received a sentence "that matches the sentence that you have imposed on me for the rest of my life".
At the trial, the court heard Buckley had tried to choke his victim and said he would kill her if she did not stop shouting. She feared she was going to die.
Buckley claimed she had consented to sex and denied he raped her, but he did admit to hitting her a number of times.
The attack happened after the woman had left the Franciscan Well brewery at the North Mall, Cork, on April 7th, 2002.
Giving judgment in the Court of Criminal Appeal yesterday, presiding judge Ms Justice Fidelma Macken said the court felt the appropriate sentence for the rape was seven years, with a further two years for assault, both sentences to run concurrently.
The court heard that the maximum sentence for rape was life, but, said Ms Justice Macken, such a sentence applied only in exceptional circumstances.
Following yesterday's decision, the victim of the rape, who was in court, did not make any comment on the outcome.
Counsel for the DPP, Alex Owens SC, had submitted that both the four-year sentence for rape and a six-month sentence for assault, imposed at the trial court, were well below what should have been imposed.
The trial judge had not referred to aggravating circumstances in the case.
The victim was "waylaid" while in a state of intoxication on her way home by an "opportunist predator" who had threatened to "throttle" and kill the woman.
Counsel for Buckley opposed any increase in the sentence.
On the date of the attack, the woman had stayed with friends in Gurranebraher.
She joined some friends for lunch and they shared a bottle of wine before moving on to several other pubs in the Cork city area. As she was going home on her own, she was attacked.
She recalled nothing after leaving the Franciscan Well until she was on the ground with a man sitting on her with his legs on each side of her body.
She tried to get up but he would not let her.
He punched her on both sides of her face and pinned a hand to her throat to try to stop her screaming.
"I thought I was going to die and I had to stop struggling . . . and then he raped me," the woman had told the Central Criminal Court.
After the incident she got up and ran, not knowing where she was going. She did not see her attacker's face. However, detectives later found a notebook at the scene and it eventually led them to Buckley, of Baker's Road, Gurranebraher.