Sexual offending by a step-parent against a child aged 11-12, involving multiple incidents of attempted rape and rape with force, threats, and breach of trust, cannot properly be characterised as less than moderate on the scale of such offending. A sentence of 720 days' imprisonment for such offending is strikingly out of kilter with current sentencing practice where the median for a single rape offence is five years. Speculative psychiatric evidence of a possible causal connection between depression and offending does not justify significant moderation of sentence where the psychiatrist himself acknowledged the limitations of his opinion.
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