By LACHLAN MOORHEAD
TWO men who repeatedly raped a 14-year-old girl at a Hallam factory have had their jail sentences almost doubled.
Daniel Miftode, 27, formerly of Pakenham, was initially jailed for six years and nine months, while Ross Jurj, 29, formerly of Berwick, was jailed for five years and five months following the incident in 2009.
But the Court of Appeal on Monday 4 April upheld the Director of Public Prosecution’s appeal against the sentences on the grounds they were manifestly inadequate.
Miftode was re-sentenced to 12 years and two months in jail with a minimum of eight years and nine months.
Jurj was re-sentenced to nine years and six months in jail with a minimum of six years and six months.
Just after midnight on 5 April, 2009, Miftode and Jurj offered T (the girl) a lift from a train station, with the appeal judges noting she had been “intoxicated to some extent” after leaving a party.
The pair took T to a coffee shop before eventually driving her to a factory where they repeatedly raped her during the night.
The two men were convicted of multiple charges, including some where each was alleged to have aided and abetted the other.
When Miftode and Jurj were sentenced in 2015, Judge Frank Gucciardo described the pair’s behaviour as “vile”.
He said they had “disregarded the most fundamental rights of this child” and “debased the victim in fundamental ways”.
On Monday the appeal judges said the “prolonged nature” of the rape, and it’s “repetition”, made the offending “especially serious”.
“Each acted with the support and encouragement (express or implied) of the other,” the judges said.
“This feature heightens the men’s culpability – offending in company is both more vicious and more cowardly – and underlines how powerless the victim would have felt.”
By ignoring T’s distress and her pleas to stop, the appeal judges said Miftode and Jurj had humiliated their victim.
“They treated her not as a person deserving of respect but as a chattel, a thing to be used for their sexual gratification in whatever way it suited them,” the judges said.
Miftode and Jurj were charged in 2011, while in 2012 a jury at their first trial deliberated for six days but could not reach a verdict.
Miftode and Jurj were found guilty in 2015.
