The prison term of a man convicted of sexually assaulting 14 women and girls he befriended on social media has been reduced by five years.
Andrew James Benn was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison in 2018 for raping and molesting 14 girls and women between September 2012 and January 2017.
Benn was between 23 and 27 years old when he perpetrated the crimes on 15 to 28-year-old victims.
He pled guilty to 33 crimes, including 21 counts of unconsented sexual contact.
District Court Judge Roy Ellis used the adjectives ‘depraved,’ ‘despicable,’ and ‘evil’ to describe the defendant’s crime.
Benn would randomly search the social media accounts of young ladies in the Hunter district of New South Wales before arranging to meet and assaulting them.
He spent weeks speaking with a 17-year-old who said she had never been on a date; he then raped her twice, leaving her stunned and fearful of how her family would react if she told them.
Benn allegedly belonged to an illicit motorcycle group that ‘can make you disappear’, so another woman was warned not to report him to the police.
After he assaulted her, she hid for eight hours in her bathroom.
Benn contested his sentence, and an appeal hearing was conducted in March 2022.
His appeal was in part prompted by the discovery of an error that required resentencing.
Judge Fabian Gleeson sought a sentence of 35 years with a non-parole period of 26 years and three months, to which Justices Natalie Adams and Mark Ierace concurred in a decision released on Monday by the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal.
Benn stated that the sentencing judge erred in deciding his sentence, which was plainly disproportionate, and that no explanations were provided for departures from regular non-parole periods and a determination of whether unusual circumstances existed.
Benn called the initial cumulative 40-year sentence and 30-year non-parole period as “crushing” in comparison to comparable cases.
Judge Gleeson observed, “The Crown correctly argues that this analysis is faulty and of little use.”
But, the Crown also noted that the beginning point for his indicative sentence on one count was greater than the maximum penalty.
Benn was resentenced after the error was discovered, but it was not ruled that his earlier jail term was obviously disproportionate.
Judge Adams remarked, “An offender condemned to a lengthy term of jail may believe the punishment to be “crushing,” but in many cases, a longer sentence may be proportional to the facts of the case.”
She stated that it was “important to highlight” that there were no objections to Benn’s sentence for crimes against 14 individuals, just to the “transparency” of the decision-making.
She added, “The transparency argued for by the applicant under this ground would have emphasized to the 14 victims the comparatively short time the applicant would be serving in custody in relation to the offenses committed against each of them.”
In April 2043, Benn will be eligible for parole.
»Serial Rapist gets his jail sentence slashed by five years«