An aged-care worker convicted of raping an 85-year-old woman will serve an extra year in jail, after the Victorian DPP successfully appealed against his initial six-month sentence.
Henry Alexander was found guilty of one count of rape in March this year but had two-and-a-half of his three-year sentence suspended.
The DPP has now successfully had that sentence quashed, with the Court of Appeal reimposing the three-year jail term – this time with only 18 months suspended.
The court said the initial sentence was clearly inadequate.
"It simply did not reflect the seriousness of the conduct involved or the significance of general deterrence in a case of this kind,'' Justices Frank Vincent, Marcia Neave and Mark Weinberg wrote.
Alexander was initially charged with sexually assaulting four elderly women – all of whom suffered severe dementia – but was found guilty of digitally raping one of the women while washing her at a nursing home in Mt Eliza.