Rapists walking free in less than 5 years in North

Rapists are walking free from prison in less than five years in the North, it emerged today.

Judges have been accused of soft sentencing by victims’ groups who are calling for an urgent review of guidelines.

Offenders are allowed automatic 50% remission of their sentences - although the Northern Office has pledged to abolish that after a vigorous lobbying campaign.

Sarah Coulter, director of the Nexus Institute support group, warned victims could be dissuaded from taking their tormentors to court.

“Often these people have suffered a lifetime of abuse, physical, psychological and sexual.

“It affects them in many ways and it is something that they’ve to live with all their life,” she said.

The average sentence in 2005 was eight and a half years.

In May Michael Sean Quinn (aged 18), from Glasvey Drive, Twinbrook, admitted raping a 15-year-old schoolgirl twice in west Belfast on August 6, 2005 and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

With good behaviour he could be out in four years, despite telephoning his victim’s mother to gloat about raping her daughter.

The average sentence for rape in the North is higher than that in England and Wales, although 50% remission does not apply there.

It was calculated from eight cases in 2003, 14 in 2004 and four in 2005. The norm in 2004 was almost 16 years and just over eight in 2003.

Ms Coulter added: “We are still lobbying for 50 per cent remission to be abolished, we have raised it with the minister for health (Michael McGimpsey).

“We would not consider even eight years a harsh sentence, when you consider the effect on the victim.”

She said they suffered incalculable mental hardship and often had to rebuild their lives after years of abuse.

“Some of our clients would wonder what is the point in taking cases to court if we are putting ourselves through all of that and then they are handed short sentences.”

Many alleged rapes are not reported to police or do not go to trial.

Former NIO Criminal Justice minister David Hanson said last December he would introduce non-determinate life sentences meaning those committing the most serious offences could be detained indefinitely.

His intervention followed the case of Strabane pensioner Attracta Harron, 65, picked up and murdered on her way home from Mass by Trevor Hamilton, 23, in 2003, less than four months after he completed a rape sentence.

DUP Assembly member David Simpson obtained the fresh information in Westminster.

The Upper Bann DUP MP said: “What emerges from this is the very real and urgent need to make sentences much more reflective of the crime,” he said.

“Nobody in their right mind could ever say that when it comes to crimes like rape, that we have got it right on sentencing.

“What is also clear is the need to make judges more accountable for their decisions.”

He said in 2003 a case of attempted rape saw a sentence of just 24 months handed down and called for greater public scrutiny of sentencing.