More jail for student who sexually assaulted sleeping woman on night bus

A university student who sexually assaulted a woman while travelling on a night bus home from Dublin city is going back to jail, almost a year after his prison term expired.

The Court of Criminal Appeal has increased Michael Igbosonu’s sentence by three years after the DPP successfully argued that his original penalty was too lenient.

Igbosonu was convicted by a jury of sexually assaulting a woman who fell asleep beside him on a night bus home from Dublin city in the early hours of January 9, 2011.

He received a two-year sentence with one year suspended from Dublin Circuit Criminal Court which the DPP today appealed on the grounds that it was too lenient.

The court has accepted the Director’s submissions and has called the crime "opportunistic, predatory, cheap, sordid and degrading".

The former student from Nigeria with an address in Balbriggan finished serving his time a year ago, but the court has now added another three years to his sentence, one of which it suspended.

His lawyers argued that returning to prison will be a disaster for the 24-year-old who held his hand to his head as he was told to present himself at Mountjoy prison in four weeks' time to begin another two-year term in custody.