A man who groomed and raped a 12-year-old girl he met while rollerskating has had almost two years cut from his prison term after an appeal.
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Daniel Clifton was jailed in 2022 for eight years and 10 months after he was found guilty by a jury of 15 offences, including rape and sexual penetration of a child under 16.
Over 12 months, between February 2014 and 2015, Clifton sexually assaulted and raped the girl on seven separate occasions in his car and at his parent's house.
He met the child at the Rollerway Skate Centre, in Geelong's Newtown, west of Melbourne, when he was aged 18, and would give her lifts home from skating.
Clifton claimed the relationship with the child with consensual, but County Court Judge Peter Rozen rejected this as the girl was much younger than the age of sexual consent.
The judge handed him a minimum term of five years and 10 months in prison.
Clifton appealed the sentence as he claimed Judge Rozen failed to take into account his intellectual disability when deciding his jail term.
He argued, in Victoria's Court of Appeal, that his intellectual impairment should mitigate or reduce his moral culpability.
Justices Karin Emerton and Stephen McLeish upheld his appeal on Tuesday, as his "significant intellectual disability" was not sufficiently taken into account.
"This omission constitutes specific error in the sentencing exercise. The sentence must be set aside and the appellant re-sentenced," the judges wrote in their decision.
Clifton had difficulty in making sound judgments, thinking clearly and logically, and in connecting his actions with consequences, the court found.
"While he appears to understand that his actions were wrong, his capacity to reason as to that wrongfulness must be seen to be compromised," the judges said.
"His moral culpability for the offending was necessarily reduced as a consequence."
Clifton was handed a seven-year sentence, one year and 10 months less than his original term, and he must spend four years and nine months in jail before he will be eligible for parole.
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
National Sexual Abuse and Redress Support Service 1800 211 028
Australian Associated Press
