MORE JAIL TIME Sex beast Philip Murphy gets four more years for attacking women in Dublin days after release

Murphy had just been released from a 10-year sentence for falsely imprisoning a woman when he sexually assaulted the two women in Dublin city centre

Philip Murphy.

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March 09 2022 03:05 PM

A serial sex offender who carried out attacks on two women in Dublin city centre days after being released from a 10-year sentence for false imprisonment has had his jail term increased by four years.

Philip Murphy (41) had just been released from serving a 10-year prison sentence for falsely imprisoning a woman when he sexually assaulted the two women in February 2016.

During both incidents, Murphy grabbed the women from behind as they were walking on their own through the city in the early hours of the morning, told them he wanted to have sex with them and said he was going to kill them.

“You’re going to die tonight,” he repeatedly told one victim.

Murphy, of no fixed abode later pleaded guilty to the two assaults and was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment for each offence by Judge Melanie Greally following a hearing at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court last April.

Both sentences were to run concurrently, the judge ordered.

The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) later appealed the sentence handed down by Judge Melanie Greally at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court last April of the grounds that it was unduly lenient.

Philipp Rahn SC, for the DPP, told the Court of Appeal today that the sentencing court “ought to have considered the imposition of consecutive sentences”.

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“There were multiple victims and this would have reflected the harm inflicted on each of the victims,” Mr Rahn said, adding that one of Murphy’s victims had to give up her job as a result of the trauma she has endured in the aftermath of the attack.

Philip Murphy

Mr Rahn said that although Murphy had been convicted for two offences, the attacks had effectively represented a “crime spree” and therefore consecutive sentencing “comes into play”.

“It was an error in principle not to [impose consecutive sentences] in these particular circumstances,” he added.

Noting that the accused had only just completed a length custodial term when he carried out the two assaults, Mr Rahn said that the sentencing judge had placed insufficient weight to the respondent’s previous convictions.

Quashing the original sentence, Mr Justice George Birmingham, sitting with Mr Justice John Edwards and Mr Justice Patrick McCarthy, said there had been “an error in principle” and the original sentence had been “unduly lenient”.