R v V.F.T.

MR JUSTICE PEPPERALL: The provisions of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act 1992 apply to this appeal. Accordingly, no matter relating to either of the victims in this case shall during that person's lifetime be included in any publication if it is likely to lead members of the public to identify that person as the victim of a sexual offence. Given that the victims in this case were the appellant's own daughters, it is necessary also to prevent the publication of his name in order to protect the victims' identities. This appeal has therefore been listed under the cipher "VFT" and neither the appellant nor the victims will be named in this public judgment.

On 6 January 2025, in the Crown Court at Canterbury the appellant, then aged 69, pleaded guilty to four counts of rape contrary to section 1 of the Sexual Offences Act 1956. On 2 May 2025, His Honour Judge Simon James sentenced the appellant to a special custodial sentence for an offender of particular concern of 22 years comprising a custodial term of 20 years and a further licence period of two years. He now appeals against sentence with leave of the single judge.

In the 1980s, the appellant repeatedly raped two of his daughters in their parents' bedroom. Both girls were only 5 years old when the offending began. The offending against the older of the two girls started in 1980 and continued until she was 10 or 11. The offending against the younger girl started three years later and continued until 1987 when she was taken into care at the age of 8.

Counts 1 and 3 charged the first occasions when each of the girls were raped, while counts 2 and 4 were multiple incident counts which reflected at least five further occasions when each of the girls were raped.

The offences were committed when the appellant came home drunk from the pub on nights when his wife was working. Both victims described being required to lie on their backs as he penetrated their vaginas. The older girl said that he did not wear a condom and that he ejaculated inside her. She recalled that he said that it must stop when her periods started so that she did not get pregnant. The younger girl gave a similar account but recalled that the appellant withdrew before he ejaculated. He instructed both girls that they were not to tell anyone. He mentioned prison and told the younger girl that it was their little secret. He told both girls that they would be the ones who got into trouble if they told anyone.

There was a third and younger daughter who was not abused but who is haunted by having witnessed her father's abuse. One Saturday morning when the girls' mother was at work, she recalled her father calling for the middle sister to come into his bedroom. He told this younger child to go round to her grandmother's house in order to get her out of the way and he then locked the bedroom door. Instead of leaving immediately, the child waited at the top of the stairs and she heard the sound of the bed squeaking as her sister was raped.

The appellant's offending was first reported to the police three decades later in 2017. He was then interviewed by the police and denied the allegations. He was arrested again in 2024 after his grandson covertly recorded a confession. On this occasion, the appellant made full admissions in police interview.

Both victims made harrowing victim personal statements describing an abusive, violent and loveless childhood. Both described the enormous and life-long psychological damage caused by this offending, their difficulty in trusting others, their low self-esteem, their feelings of hopelessness and their contemplation of suicide. The older girl has been particularly plagued by her visceral fears for her own daughter and her granddaughters, while the younger victim turned to alcohol to numb the pain and made a number of attempts on her own life. The very substantial impact of this offending was further described by the third daughter and by the two victims' husbands.

In passing sentence, the judge observed that this was a campaign of rape against both victims that had had a profound, permanent and devastating impact on their lives and had resulted in significant and permanent psychological harm. This was, he said, the most egregious abuse of trust imaginable as the appellant targeted his very young children and groomed them to accept and tolerate extensive sexual abuse.

The judge identified a number of further significant aggravating features, including his targeting of particularly young and vulnerable children, ejaculation, threats to secure the girls' compliance and silence, the presence on occasion of other children and the commission of these offences when under the influence of alcohol.

The judge said that the delay since these offences did not provide any substantial mitigation because while the appellant had lived most of his adult life without facing up to his offending, his daughters had lived with the devastating and traumatic consequences of his abuse for decades.

The judge considered the guidelines issued by the Sentencing Council for rape of children under 13 and for totality. He said that each offence of rape was at least a category A2 offence within the rape guidelines. The starting point for such an offence is 13 years' imprisonment with a custody range of 11 to 17 years. The judge said that in view of the multiple offences of rape committed against each victim, sentences at the very top of that range and potentially above would have been justified after trial. Indeed, he noted that the guidelines indicate that offences may be of such severity, for example where they involve a campaign of rape, that sentences of 20 years and above may be appropriate. The judge said that the appropriate sentence in respect of the offending against each victim after trial, but apparently before consideration of any mitigation, was 17 years. As to mitigation, the judge concluded that the appellant's expressions of remorse were genuine but added that they would have provided far more compelling mitigation had they been expressed decades ago.

The judge concluded that consecutive sentences should be passed in respect of the offences against each victim. He said that there should then be a reduction of four years to reflect the personal mitigation and the principle of totality. The judge's total notional sentence after trial was therefore 30 years which he then reduced by one-third to give credit for the appellant's guilty pleas to arrive at his final custodial sentence of 20 years' imprisonment.

Such sentence was structured as two consecutive sentences of 11 years passed pursuant to section 278 of the Sentencing Act 2020 comprising custodial terms of 10 years and an additional year on licence in respect of the multiple offence counts. The judge then imposed concurrent terms of eight years' imprisonment, comprising custodial terms of seven years and an additional year on licence on each of the single offence counts.

By this appeal, Craig Evans argues that the sentence was manifestly excessive. He accepts that these were Category A2 offences and that the judge was entitled to consider sentences at the top or above the sentencing range. In his oral submissions today, he acknowledged that these were plainly serious and abhorrent offences that required a substantial sentence of imprisonment. He submits, however, that consecutive sentences, of 17 years after trial in respect of each victim were too long and that the reduction of just 4 years failed to give sufficient weight to the strong personal mitigation in this case or to the principle of totality.

In our judgment, the judge was right to conclude that each rape was at least a category A2 offence: culpability A because of the gross breach of trust in raping his own children and the grooming behaviour used against both girls; and category 2 harm because these children were particularly vulnerable due to their extreme youth, because these offences were committed in their own homes and because they suffered severe psychological harm.

Each offence therefore attracted a starting point of 13 years' imprisonment and a category range of up to 17 years. The judge properly identified the aggravating features in this case although care was obviously required not to double count the important feature of this case that these children were particularly young and vulnerable.

We agree with the judge that there was some evidence of remorse albeit that would have provided more compelling mitigation some decades ago or even when the appellant was first confronted about his offending. The judge was right to regard delay as not providing any substantial mitigation but in addition to the reasons that he gave, we would add that the appellant's own actions in telling these children to keep quiet and threatening them that they would be in trouble were both designed to and did in fact significantly delay his own prosecution.

While the appellant had no previous convictions and has not committed any further offences since 1987, previous good character can provide little mitigation given the seriousness and persistence of the offending in this case. A particular feature of this case, however, is that after the period of offending the appellant and his wife fostered children over many years without any further offence being committed by this appellant.

The judge was entitled to find that the appropriate custodial sentence in respect of each victim was 17 years' imprisonment and to conclude that he should pass consecutive sentences to reflect the fact that there were two separate victims. Plainly the severity of the offending in this case against two vulnerable and frightened children, who were repeatedly raped by their drunken father in their own home over a period of years, was such that the judge was right to conclude that the total sentence after trial must be well in excess of 20 years.

The sentence then had to be modified to ensure that it reflected the overall offending on this indictment and that it was just and proportionate in accordance with the totality guideline issued by the Sentencing Council. It was at this final stage that we consider that the judge fell into error in that he failed to have sufficient regard to totality in reaching the final sentence after trial of 30 years' imprisonment. Such sentence was a reduction of only four years from the sum of the sentences identified as appropriate for the offending against the two victims and was also intended by the judge to encompass some allowance for the mitigation in this case.

In our judgment, the appropriate total sentence in this case was 26 years' imprisonment after trial, such that the custodial term should have been 17 years after credit for plea. We therefore allow this appeal against sentence. We quash the sentences on counts 2 and 4 and we re-sentence the appellant to consecutive special custodial sentences for an offender of particular concern, pursuant to section 278 of the Sentencing Act 2020, of 9½ years on each of those counts, comprising custodial terms of 8½ years and a further period of licence of one year. Accordingly, the total sentence is 19 years' imprisonment, comprising a total custodial term of 17 years and a further period of 2 years for which the appellant will be subject to licence.