A serial sex offender who pursued his victims on Tinder was able to get his sentence reduced by five years after an appeals court determined that the judge made a mistake during the first trial.
14 teenage ladies were sexually attacked and indecently touched by Andrew James Benn between September 2012 and January 2017.
Benn, who is based in the Hunter area of New South Wales, Australia, has used Tinder and other social media to find and befriend local women.
One 17-year-old girl whom he groomed admitted to him that she had never had a boyfriend. He set up a meeting with the girl, then sexually assaulted her twice.
Benn advised a different victim not to contact the police because he was a motorcycle gang member and knew individuals who could “make her vanish.”
According to 9News, Benn was between the ages of 23 and 27 when he committed the crimes on victims between the ages of 15 and 28.
He entered a guilty plea to 33 charges, including 21 counts of engaging in sexual activity without permission.
Judge Roy Ellis of the District Court sentenced the defendant to 40 years in prison and prohibited him from applying for parole for 30 years after describing the acts he had committed as “depraved,” “despicable,” and “evil” throughout the trial.
A new sentence of 35 years with a non-parole term of 26 years and three months has been suggested by Judge Fabian Gleeson after Benn’s “crushing” sentence was contested in an appeal he filed in March 2022.
The judgement was supported by Justices Natalie Adams and Mark Ierace, and it was released by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal on Monday (February 20).
A prolonged jail term may be considered “crushing” by the perpetrator, but in many situations, it may be the appropriate punishment given the facts of the case, according to Justice Adams.
It was “pertinent to highlight,” she said, that Benn’s sentence for the crimes against the 14 victims was appropriate; the problem was with the “transparency” of the decision-making process.
»“Depraved” child rapist’s sentence is reduced because he claimed it was too severe«