A man who subjected a 10-year-old girl to "degrading and debasing" sexual acts in a playground toilet block in Adelaide has had his jail term increased.
Hamzeh Bahrami pleaded guilty to four counts of indecent assault over the attack in April last year and was jailed for just under four years and 10 months with a non-parole period of three years.
But the Crown argued the sentence was so disproportionate to the seriousness of his offending, it eroded public confidence in the courts.
On Friday, the Court of Criminal Appeal found unanimously that the sentencing judge had erred and increased Bahrami's head sentence to seven years and his non-parole period to five years.
In his reasons, Chief Justice Chris Kourakis said the judge had wrongly reduced the sentence by the full 40 per cent allowed for guilty pleas.
"The sentence is so disproportionately low, having regard to the circumstances of the offending, that it must be corrected in order to maintain public confidence in the administration of the criminal law," Chief Justice Kourakis said.
He described Bahrami's offending as "abhorrent" and said it terrified the victim and caused enduring distress to her family.
"It shocked and alarmed the community and heightened anxiety about the welfare of its children," he said.
"A sentence with strong elements of punishment, personal deterrence and community protection was called for."
In arguing for a longer sentence, Director of Public Prosecutions Martin Hinton QC had told the appeal court the girl was "preyed upon in an instant" when she was on a swing and deprived of her liberty for eight minutes.
"In those eight minutes she was subjected to degrading, debasing sexual acts," the DPP said.
Mr Hinton said while it should not be overlooked that Bahrami's guilty pleas removed the need for the girl to relive her experiences in court, that did not necessarily mean he was entitled to the full discount on his jail term.
He said the sentencing judge quite rightly described the offending as among the most serious of its kind and pointed to the strength of the prosecution case.
"Once the DNA evidence was in, the game was up."
But defence counsel Nick Vadasz argued that no error was made in the sentencing process and an appeal in such circumstances had to meet a high hurdle.
"That hurdle has not been met in this case," he said.
Australian Associated Press
