Anger as gang sex attackers’sentences reduced

Rape crisis groups have criticised an appeal court’s decision to reduce the sentence of two sexual offenders despite predicting they would reoffend on release.

The two men, aged 22 and 24, were jailed for 10 years in 2013 for what was described as an attempted “predatory gang rape” on a woman in Cork in 2009.

Their trial judge at the time said they had deliberately gone out looking for a woman, driving around with a mattress in a van “customised for sex”.