EXCLUSIVE: Top court slashes jail term for ‘animalistic’ rapist, 18, who tore his victim’s hair out with his teeth in the ‘worst sex crime of a judge’s career’
- Alan Simmons, 18, raped, beat a young woman in a horrific random assault
- He bit her, punched her private parts and pulled out her hair with his teeth
- Simmons was sentenced to total sentence of 18 years by the District Court
- Judge described it as ‘worst sexual assault without murder’ in 36 years of law
- Court of Criminal Appeal cut sentence in a decision handed down last week
Sentence slashed: Alan Simmons’ crime was ‘one of the worst sexual assaults on a random female victim, who has not been subsequently murdered’, a judge found
A rapist whose ‘animalistic’ assault on a woman was ‘one of the worst’ attacks a judge has seen in 36 years practising criminal law has had his sentence slashed on appeal.
Alan Simmons grabbed a young Bathurst woman, 22, by the neck as she walked home from work on a Saturday evening in August 2015.
He dragged the complete stranger to the banks of the Macquarie River and raped, beat and taunted her over more than an hour.
Over the course of the sadistic assault, he bit her, pulled a mouthful of her hair out with his teeth and told her he was raping her ‘because you like it’.
District Court Judge Jeffrey McLennan sentenced Simmons to 18 years’ imprisonment, including a 12 year non parole period, about two years ago.
Judge McLennan described the attack in stark terms. It was one of the most terrible assaults he had seen in his more than three decades practising criminal law in two states.
‘Simply put, this is one of the worst sexual assaults on a random female victim, who has not been subsequently murdered, that I have encountered,’ he told the court on sentencing.
But in a decision handed down this month, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the judge’s ruling and slashed three years from Simmons’ total sentence.
The embankment where Alan Simmons, 18, committed his sick crimes in August 2015
The NSW Court of Criminal Appeal (pictured) found his Simmons’ sentencing judge had calculated his total sentence ‘in an aggregate (sentence) which is manifestly excessive’
The appeal panel found the sentencing judge had handed Simmons appropriate sentences for each of his individual charge.
But they found the judge had accumulated his total sentence ‘in an aggregate (sentence) which is manifestly excessive’.
One of the worst sexual assaults on a random female victim, who has not been subsequently murdered, that I have encountered
The panel said: ‘In our view no longer term than 15 years with a non-parole period of 10 years is justified at the applicant will be resentenced accordingly’.
The panel described what was done to the young woman as ‘shocking’.
The panel said the community would expect Simmons to punished in a way that conveyed ‘unequivocal denunciation and deterrance’.
The judges described their new sentence as ‘an appropriately strong penalty, apt to serve the purposes of sentencing in this case’.
Simmons will be eligible for parole on August 1, 2025. His total sentence expires in 2030.