Man jailed for life for sexual assault of toddler

Craig Sweeney

LONDON - Home Secretary John Reid intervened today to try to increase the five-year minimum jail tariff handed down to a convicted paedophile who sexually assaulted a three-year-old girl.

Reid called the sentence on Craig Sweeney unduly lenient and the girl's family branded it "an insult."

The Chief Crown Prosecutor for South Wales told Reuters he, like the Home Secretary, intended to refer the case to the Attorney General.

"I have asked for papers so I can submit papers to the Attorney General," Christopher Woolley said.

Various bodies can make representations to the Attorney General, who then decides whether to refer the case to the Appeal Court.

Sweeney, 24, who had been released from prison early after a previous offence, was jailed for life at Cardiff Crown Court today for snatching the girl from her home and assaulting her.

But the judge ruled he should only have to serve five years before being eligible for parole.

Reid's intervention and the comment from Woolley follow a successful bid by the government last week to have the jail term increased on a man who raped a 12-week-old baby.

"Life sentences are the ultimate sanction a court can make," a Home Office official said in a statement. "However, the Home Secretary is concerned that the tariff Craig Sweeney has been given does not reflect the seriousness of this crime and is writing to the Attorney General to ask him to consider referring the sentence to the Court of Appeal as unduly lenient."

Sweeney had pleaded guilty to kidnapping and sexually assaulting the girl in January, just weeks after he was released early from prison for indecently assaulting a girl aged six.

Sweeney, who was known to the family, snatched the toddler from her home while her mother was making a phone call and drove her to his flat in Newport where he subjected her to what police said was a terrifying sexual ordeal.

Sentencing Sweeney, judge Griffith Williams told him he should not be considered for parole before five years -- and only then if he posed no future risk.

"You have shown yourself to be a thoroughly devious man," the judge was quoted as saying in media reports. "You kidnapped this little girl for your own sexual gratification.

"You subjected her to an extremely painful ordeal. It beggars belief. This little girl has changed from a talkative and bubbly little girl into a distant, moody and depressed child."

The girl was found by police after Sweeney crashed his car 80 miles away in Wiltshire the following morning. Officers had pursued the car after seeing it jump a red traffic light.

The toddler suffered minor injuries in the crash but also required hospital treatment for other "significant" unspecified injuries, police said.

The victim's family said the sentence did not reflect the violence of the attack.

In a statement read outside the court, the family said they were angry with what had happened to their child and the response of the police.

"The family believes today's sentence is an insult to their three-year-old daughter and that there are grave failings in the criminal justice system that need to be urgently addressed," their solicitor Anne Tyson said.

"The family are extremely unhappy about the way South Wales Police handled this incident and a complaint is being investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission," she added.

- REUTERS