Footy star rapist’s ‘lenient’ sentence to stand

A JUNIOR footy star who violently raped a 16-year-old girl in her school uniform could spend just two  and a half years in jail ­despite two appeal judges ­describing the sentence as ­“lenient”.

A JUNIOR footy star who violently raped a 16-year-old girl in her school uniform could spend just two  and a half years in jail ­despite two appeal judges ­describing the sentence as ­“lenient”.

Djanni Dowd’s crime was described by a District Court judge as a “callous and brutal sexual violation” by an ­offender with a “sense of sexual entitlement reinforced by violence and threats”.

But when Judge Ian McClintock sentenced the 21-year-old to five years’ jail, with a non-parole period of two years six months, the Director of Public Prosecutions app­ealed on the grounds it was manifestly inadequate.

The court had heard how Dowd, then 19, invited the teenage girl into his bedroom to sell her drugs in 2016 but began kissing her neck, ignoring her repeated pleas to stop.

Djanni Dowd, sentenced to at least two years six months behind bars for one count of sexual intercourse without consent.

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Dowd then hit her in the face with a closed fist. The girl asked: “What has gotten into you? This isn’t you,” as she cried and called out for him to stop. But Dowd pushed her onto the bed and said: “If you say stop one more time I will hit you again” before raping her in an attack which left the girl “suicidal”.

Dowd played representative rugby league and was described as an exceptional sportsman in his younger years. He claimed in his defence the sex was consensual and the pair had previously had sex on a monthly basis. In a letter tendered to court Dowd wrote the conviction had “hurt me very deeply”.

The Court of Criminal ­Appeal dismissed the DPP’s appeal because it ruled the sentence, while lenient according to two judges on the panel, was not “plainly unjust”.

Justice Richard Button said: “In my opinion, taking into ­account all of the objective and subjective features of the ­matter, the head sentence is ­lenient, and the non-parole ­period markedly so.” But he said it was within the discretion of the sentencing judge.

Justice Des Fagan said while the sentence was “very lenient” he could not say it was unjust and outside the discretion and flexibility allowed to first instance judges.