SENTENCING STATEMENTS
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HMA v Dean Lynch
Aug 15, 2025
On sentencing Lord Harrower made the following remarks in court:
"Dean Lynch, you have been found guilty of a single charge of repeatedly raping a woman to her injury.
On 27 November 2022, the complainer returned home, where she lived alone, after a charity event that you had both attended the previous evening. It was already after midnight, and she had had a lot to drink. Following an exchange of texts and a telephone call, she allowed you to come round. You and she were friends. You had visited her at home on at least a couple of occasions, and she had visited you at yours. She trusted you.
I don’t propose to rehearse the details of the evidence regarding what happened next. There was no suggestion that the complainer was so intoxicated that she lacked the capacity to consent, but she would certainly have been in a vulnerable state. She had already fallen asleep in the taxi home, and her friends had had to make the taxi wait in order to make sure she got through her front door.
According to the complainer, almost as soon as you arrived, you pestered her for sex, even though she made it clear that she wasn’t interested. She tried to push you away. She kept her mouth closed when you tried to kiss her. But you wouldn’t take “No” for an answer. You raped her on three separate occasions, interrupted only by her efforts to try to get some sleep. At one point you spat in her mouth, something which could have only enhanced the humiliating and degrading nature of the ordeal to which you subjected her.
In evidence, you offered a radically different account, one in which the complainer was portrayed as an active and willing participant in a variety of sexual activities including intercourse. As part of what can only be described as a process of seduction, you claimed to have lifted up the top part of a two-piece set of pyjamas. However, you later accepted that the complainer had been wearing a “onesie”. That little mistake would have given the jury cause to ask themselves whether your version of events might not have been even more richly embroidered. In any event, by their verdict, the jury must be taken to have accepted the complainer’s account and rejected yours.
I have received a victim impact statement from the complainer. Her physical injuries caused her pain and discomfort but healed within days. By contrast, the psychological and emotional harm you inflicted upon her has been devastating, and is something from which she may never fully recover. Such is the serious nature of your offence, involving as it does repeated rapes of a vulnerable woman in her own home, only a significant custodial sentence is appropriate.
My Lynch, I have taken account of everything submitted on your behalf by Mr Roy, including three supportive references. You are now 29 years’ old. You have no record of previous convictions. The pre-sentencing report indicates that you have a degree of insight into the impact of your offending, albeit from the perspective of someone who continues to express their innocence. You are tentatively assessed as presenting with a low risk of further sexual offending, though with the potential for that to increase depending on factors such as your consumption of alcohol. The crime you have committed is seen as being “out of character” by those who know you well. Your professional colleagues also appear to have held you in high regard. In addition to retribution and deterrence, rehabilitation is an important sentencing objective. But for these mitigating factors, the sentence I am about to impose would have been significantly higher.
I shall sentence you to a period of 6 years’ imprisonment, backdated to 18 July 2025 when you were remanded in custody. You will be subject to the notification provisions of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 indefinitely. I will make a non-harassment order such that you may not contact, approach or communicate with the complainer, or attempt to do any of these things, either directly or indirectly, for an indefinite period. "
15 August 2025