Former BBC presenter Stuart Hall is sentenced to a further 15 months in prison by the appeal court after the intervention of the attorney general.
The court of appeal ruled on Friday that Hall’s 15 month jail sentence for sex offences was “unduly lenient”.
Hall’s 15-month prison sentence failed to adequately reflect the gravity of his offending or “public concern” over such crimes, the attorney general told court of appeal judges today.
The 83-year-old from Wilmslow, Cheshire, admitted 14 counts of indecent assault against girls as young as nine between 1967 and 1987.
The former It’s A Knockout presenter was sentenced in June at Preston crown court by the Recorder of Preston, Judge Anthony Russell QC.
Attorney General Dominic Grieve told the packed courtroom: “It is submitted that the total sentence of 15 months’ imprisonment for 14 incidents of indecent assault committed against 13 female victims aged between the ages of nine and 17 over an 18-year period when couple with the aggravating features… failed adequately to reflect the gravity of the totality of the offences, and the public concern about offences of this nature.
“Even if the individual sentences for each count are appropriate sentences given the statutory maximum available, some of the sentences should have been made to run consecutively so that the total sentence passed reflected the culpability of the offender, the harm caused and to deter others”.
He said that “it appears to me that the sentence was unduly lenient”.
Court of appeal doubles stuart hall’s setence to 2 and a half years.
— simon israel (@simonisrael) July 26, 2013
Cour of Appeal rules stuart hall 15 month sentence ‘unduly lenient’ and inadequate and lengthens his jail term to 30 months
— simon israel (@simonisrael) July 26, 2013
Mr Hall’s QC Crispin Aylett argued that there was “nothing wrong” with the sentence imposed.
He told the court: “If the object was to see this man punished, disgraced and financially ruined then all of that has been more than achieved.”
Lord Judge said Mr Hall “got away with it” for decades and had “lived a lie for more than half of his life”.
After the announcement, Mr Grieve said: “I asked the court to consider the multiple offending by Stuart Hall over a prolonged period of time which involved numerous victims.
“I also asked that the court take into account the breaches of trust in this case – Hall carried out some of these offences in places where the victims were entitled to feel safe, he used his celebrity status to invite them to attend the BBC, and he also displayed an element of planning and premeditation.
“I am pleased that the court found that 15 months was unduly lenient and have today increased that sentence to 30 months and I hope that this case has highlighted the fact that historical sexual offences are always taken very seriously and show that the law still applies, whoever the offender may be.”