The Court of Criminal Appeal has increased a prison sentence 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 decision by the Court of Criminal Appeal effectively means a 13-year sentence for James Lombard.
Lombard was initially given a 14-year sentence, with the final two years suspended, for the offences at Cork Circuit Criminal Court, giving a total sentence of 12 years' imprisonment. Yesterday, the three judge Court of Criminal Appeal granted an appeal by the DPP against leniency of sentence and set aside the two-year suspension and replaced it with a sentence of 14 years, with one year suspended.
Lombard (37), Blarney St, Cork, was in May last year given a seven year sentence, with two years suspended. In November last year, he was given a further seven-year sentence, to run consecutively with the first sentence, after he pleaded guilty to the sexual assault of a 10-year-old girl. The second offence was committed on February 20th, 2005, while he was on bail on the original charges.
Cork Circuit Criminal Court was told last year that Lombard was convicted in February of sexually assaulting seven boys and in April he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting another seven boys and two girls aged between four and 10. The court was told 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.
Lombard was first arrested 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.
He 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. Yesterday, Ms Justice Fidelma Macken, presiding, said it believed there had been an error in principle and there had been no justification to suspend the final two years of the sentence.
Having regard to an indication from Lombard's counsel, Blaise O'Carroll SC, that Lombard is willing to enter a programme at Arbour Hill prison to assist him, the court would suspend the final year of the combined sentence, she said.
Marjorie Farrelly, for the DPP, said the trial court had failed to give sufficient regard to the fact that there were 16 different victims and the gravity was not reflected in the total sentence imposed.