There is no rule of law that delay between offending and charging must always be treated as a mitigating factor in sentencing; each case depends on its own facts. Where a family has actively dissuaded a complainant from reporting sexual offences to police, the sentencing judge is not required to treat the resulting delay as mitigating. Reference to the family home as the location of intra-familial sexual offences is permissible where it forms part of the analysis of breach of trust, and is distinguishable from cases where the offender is an intruder.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 7 later cases that cite this judgment.
3 of the 7 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.