SENIOR judges threw out an attempt by government lawyers to increase the three year sentence handed to a man accused by his victim of using her ‘as a sex toy’.

Oxford man Raj Garewal, 57, was caged in September for a catalogue of sexual assaults on his sleeping victim.

They included a count of sexual assault by penetration - admitted as an alternative to attempted rape - that involved him perform a sex act on the woman as she pretended to sleep.

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Earlier this year, the court heard the victim suffered with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the abuse. In a probation report, Garewal had said: "I pleaded guilty because I am guilty. I only blame myself. It's a situation of my own making."

On Thursday, Ben Holt, instructed by the Solicitor General, asked the Court of Appeal to find that the three year jail term was 'unduly lenient'. 

Mr Holt, whose submissions were watched by Garewal's victim and members of her family, said the judge should have considered the victim ‘particularly vulnerable’ because she was asleep when the assaults were carried out.

But Lady Justice Macur, who delivered the judgement on behalf of the panel of three senior judges, disagreed with the submission the sentence was unduly lenient – and kept the original three year jail term.

“This hearing is a review and not a rehearing. That means this or any other court may reach a different conclusion but that does not necessarily undermine a judge’s finding reached after consideration of all the relevant facts,” she said.

READ MORE: Report from Garewal's crown court sentencing

The Solicitor General had not identified any ‘error’ in the judge’s findings beyond a failure to find the victim ‘particularly vulnerable’ as set out in the Sentencing Council’s guidelines, she added.

The Court of Appeal said the judge who sentenced Garewal at Aylesbury Crown Court, had taken ‘care’ to consider all the relevant aggravating features of the offending.

She had considered the fact the victim was asleep in terms of Garewal having breached her trust, rather than her being ‘particularly vulnerable’.

“We find that those two factors – trust and vulnerability – are interchangeable,” Lady Justice Macur added.

Earlier, Jane Bickerstaff KC, for Garewal, argued that the sentence was not unduly lenient. She said: “The court cannot be seeking to set a precedent that whenever a victim is asleep it is axiomatic they are automatically particularly vulnerable.

“And nor can the guidelines be seeking to do that because otherwise in the factors to be considered it would say the victim was asleep and it doesn’t.

“It says the victim was particularly vulnerable due to personal circumstances, and part of the submission that I make is that the word ‘particularly’ cannot just be there randomly for no reason. It must have some significance.”

The reason her client pleaded guilty at the crown court was ‘precisely because [the complainant] was asleep at the time and therefore she could not consent to what he was doing’.

She said the judge must have put the offending at the top end of the range in the sentencing guidelines, given she imposed three years’ imprisonment once his mitigation and early guilty plea was taken into account.

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This story was written by Tom Seaward. He joined the team in 2021 as Oxfordshire's court and crime reporter.  

To get in touch with him email: Tom.Seaward@newsquest.co.uk

Follow him on Twitter: @t_seaward