R v AB

JUDGMENT

1. There are prohibitions on the publication of matters directly or indirectly identifying the victims in these proceedings. [1] Those prohibitions will be facilitated by the use of pseudonyms. The offender will be referred to as "AB". AB's daughter, the victim of counts 1 to 6, will be referred to as "BB". AB's eldest daughter, the victim of counts 7-15, will be referred to as "CB". AB's son, the victim of counts 16-20, will be referred to as "DB". AB's youngest daughter, the victim of counts 21-23, will be referred to as "EB".
2. From 2001 until sometime in 2016 or 2017, AB, the offender who is before the Court for sentencing, was in a relationship with a woman with whom he had four children: three daughters and a son. In 2017 an ambiguous complaint was made by one of those children about their father, the offender. The police became involved, and they undertook an investigation that included conducting one of more interviews with each of those four children. On 7 April 2022 the offender was arrested and charged with sexual offences against his children. He has been in custody since that date.
3. On 16 October 2023, the then almost 40-year-old offender was found guilty by a jury, and consequently convicted, of 23 child sexual abuse offences against his children. The offending period spanned the time from April 2014 to December 2021, when the offender was aged in his thirties.
4. The offender gave evidence in his defence. That evidence was a complete denial of ever having committed any sexual acts with or towards his children. The jury's verdict reflects an acceptance - beyond reasonable doubt of the evidence of those children in support of each offence and a rejection of the offender's evidence to the effect that he is innocent.
5. Notwithstanding that result, it falls to this Court to find the facts on sentence, consistent with the jury's verdicts and to assess the objective seriousness of the offending and the separate but related task of assessing the moral culpability of the offender. These are critical components of instinctive synthesis in the sentencing process that set the parameters of an appropriate sentence, ensuring the sentence is proportionate to the offence. Needless to say, facts adverse to the interests of an offender will only be taken into account if those facts have been established beyond reasonable doubt, whereas facts submitted to be in favour of an offender need only to be proved on the balance of probabilities.