SENTENCING STATEMENTS
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HMA v Peter McCormick
Aug 6, 2024
On sentencing, Judge Brown said:
"You pled guilty to four charges of lewd, indecent and libidinous practices.
The offences described in charges 1, 2 and 3 occurred during the period from June 1978 to September 1979. You encouraged young boys to visit your flat and stay overnight by supplying them with alcohol, drugs and cigarettes and were plainly grooming them with a view to sexually abusing them.
In relation to charge 1, a boy aged 10 who was staying overnight woke during the night to find that you had pulled down his jeans and pants and were touching his penis, testicles and anus. He froze with fear and pretended that he was still asleep.
In relation to charge 2, another boy aged 12, again staying overnight, was woken by you during the night. You took his hand and rubbed your penis with it. He pulled his hand away but you again took hold of his hand and did the same thing before he fell back asleep.
In relation to charge 3 you encouraged another boy aged 13 to drink so much alcohol that he became very drunk and fell asleep. During the night he woke to find that you were rubbing his penis with your hand and rubbing your own penis with his hand. He pretended still to be asleep and you then performed oral sex on him.
The offence described in charge 4 occurred some years later and involved the repeated sexual abuse over a 2-year period of a boy aged between 7 and 10 years who frequently visited your house. You took advantage of that situation to groom him with a view to sexual activity. You would arrange for the two of you to be alone together and would talk to him about sexual things and show him pornographic magazines – and this progressed to the sexual activity described in the charge, which included performing oral sex on him and twice attempting to penetrate his anus with your penis.
Given the nature of these crimes, the only appropriate sentence is imprisonment. The length of the sentence is to be determined on the basis the gravity of the offences taking account of the harm caused and your culpability or blameworthiness.
As regards the harm caused, as noted in the Criminal Justice Social Work Report (CJSWR) the impact of sexual abuse as a child can last a lifetime and three of the victims, now adults, have submitted victim impact statements describing in detail how your behaviour towards them has significantly affected, and continues to affect, many aspects of their lives.
As regards culpability, there is a distinction between the level of culpability in respect of the first three charges and that in respect of charge 4 in that you committed the offences described in the first three charges when you were relatively young at the age of 20 or 21. It appears from the CJSWR that at that age and against a relatively recent background of a difficult childhood as detailed in the report, a lack of maturity resulted in your being less aware than an older person of the gravity and impact of your offending behaviour and this reduces the level of culpability in respect of those offences. The situation was quite different in relation to charge 4 as you were at that time a mature adult in your late thirties.
I take into account what has been said on your behalf, in particular the fact that you appear genuinely remorseful about your conduct – and it is noted in the CJSWR that you describe it as terrible and accept full responsibility for it. I also take account of the fact that the offending ended almost 27 years ago and that during this period you have not re-offended, have maintained a long-term relationship, have been in employment for much of the time and appear to have been a responsible member of society. The protection of the public is not therefore such a material consideration as it would have been nearer the time of the offending and the element in the sentence relative to public protection is much reduced.
Taking all relevant factors into account, if you had not pled guilty I would have imposed a cumulo sentence in respect of all 4 charges of 6 years 6 months imprisonment. By way of explanation of that sentence, had each of these offences stood alone I would have imposed sentences of imprisonment of 18 months on each of charges 1 and 2, 2 years on charge 3 and 3 years 6 months on charge 4. If these sentences had been imposed and made to run consecutively to each other, the result would have been an excessive sentence of 8 years 6 months so I have reduced it to 6 years 6 months years in order to achieve a fair and proportionate overall sentence.
You are entitled to some discount because you pled guilty in terms of section 76 of the 1995 Act but this was not an early plea in that following your first appearance on petition on 21 February 2023 there was a delay of almost 14 months before the plea was intimated to the Crown on 11 April 2024. In these circumstances an appropriate discount is 18 months which reduces the sentence to 5 years and that will run from 28 May 2024.
As a result of this sentence you will be subject to the notification requirements of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 for an indefinite period."