Our View: Can there ever be mitigating factors in a rape case?

Two people have received jail sentences in the past week for rape, one of them was aged 24 and the other 70. The pensioner got ten years in jail and the younger man four.

As is often the case with sentencing in Cyprus, on the face of it there does not seem to be any consistency.

A man was jailed for two years recently for accidentally starting a fire with a lit cigarette butt that burned several hectares of wild vegetation. Sending someone to jail for starting a fire has been unusual up to now. Most have received hefty fines and suspended sentences.

But it turned out that the fire was started on the same day although in a different place as the devastating inferno last summer in Arakapas which led to the death of four Egyptian men.

The judge clearly took this into account when making his decision as he referred to it in his ruling. If there had been no Arakapas fire, would it have been as mindful that people can end up dying from a careless action, or would the sentence have been more lenient?

In another instance this month two men were sentenced to a hefty seven and nine years for their involvement in a meth lab with the additional charge of trying to destroy evidence by setting a fire in the room at the Limassol court where it was being stored. Drug offences almost always lead to harsh sentences.

Sometimes it is difficult for the layman to figure out where a judge might be coming from when a ruling is made, what mitigating factors they might take into account in reaching a judgement. Normally, you hear defence lawyers argue for a person’s clean record, their first offence or some sob story. Sometimes it might have merit, even perhaps reducing a charge from murder to manslaughter.

But can there ever be a ‘mitigating factor’ in a rape case? Isn’t it always premediated? Rape in Cyprus, like premediated murder, carries a maximum sentence of life in prison. The 70-year-old raped one of the female workers on his farm and tried to rape another. He got ‘life’ but only because he is likely to die in jail due to his age. The chances are this was not his first offence.

The younger man only got four years. He met the woman at a bar in Ayia Napa last summer. She was drunk and later lost consciousness. Then, he took her to a coastal area and carried her into the sea where he raped her.

This was not ‘a date gone wrong’, if that is what a defence lawyer might like to argue. The extent of his premeditation and his actions showed he was cold and ruthless. He had plenty of time to make a different choice. He didn’t. His sentence was not long enough.