Humphries jail term ‘not lenient’
The former Irish Times sports journalist pleaded guilty to two charges of defilement of a child, and four charges of sexual exploitation, in relation to the teenage girl he had groomed and abused.
Despite criticisms of the sentence, NUI Galway law lecturer Tom O’Malley said the four years, which Circuit Court Judge Karen O’Connor took as a starting point on the defilement offences, were close to the maximum five years she could have applied.
“There was a reduction of 18 months from the headline [four-year] sentence, but that was primarily for the guilty plea, belated though it was,” he told the RTÉ News This Week radio programme.
He said Humphries’ previous good record, and other factors, also influenced the reduction. The judge’s remarks about the fall from grace being greater for people with a high public profile prompted criticisms, some suggesting Humphries’ position in society, and as a GAA mentor, should have been an aggravating factor. Mr O’Malley said such factors are factored into the equation, and are equally difficulty in the sentencing of white-collar crime, but very little weight is given to them.
He also pointed out that the judged had dealt in detail with the victim impact statement of the girl, who is now aged in her early 20s.
There is a maximum term of life imprisonment for exploitation, but Mr O’Malley said the wide range of offences covered by such a charge can include causing a child to engage in prostitution or using a child to produce pornography.
The judge took a starting point of three years for the exploitation, reducing it to two years to run concurrently with the defilment sentence.
Mr O’Malley said judges apply concurrent sentences where the offences relate to the same “overall course of conduct.”
“If you give consecutive sentences for everything, you end up with quite an inordinately high, crushing sentence,” he said.
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