A “predatory sexual offender” who abused five underage girls, two of whom he raped, has had his jail sentence increased at the Court of Appeal.
Ashley Darbyshire was imprisoned for 15 years in April after admitting 19 offences, including rape, sexual activity with a child and making indecent images.
One victim, referred to as V1, was abused by the 28-year-old over two years, beginning when she was just 13.
During that time, Darbyshire introduced her to eight other offenders who also abused her in the Blackrod and Adlington areas of Bolton, Greater Manchester, and who were jailed alongside him at Liverpool Crown Court.
The Solicitor General referred all nine sentences to the Court of Appeal, claiming they were “unduly lenient” and should be increased.
In a ruling on Wednesday, three senior judges ruled that Darbyshire’s sentence should be raised to 18-and-a-half years, but dismissed the bids to increase the jail terms in the other cases.
Lord Justice Edis, sitting with Mr Justice Butcher and Judge Angela Morris, said: “Darbyshire was significantly more culpable than anyone else in this case, having committed 19 offences against five victims.
“He is a predatory sexual offender who targets child victims, albeit ones who are not under the age of 13.
“The fact that they were only just past their 13th birthday is, in his case, a highly material factor.
“The persistent and entrenched nature of his behaviour in targeting not just one 13 to 14-year-old child, but five, is also a highly material factor.”
Darbyshire first contacted V1 on social media in 2016, when she was aged 13 and he was 19.
He went on to abuse her until she was 15, raping her twice, and abusing four other girls aged under 16, one of whom he also raped.
Sentencing him, Judge Simon Medland KC said Darbyshire had a “crazed attitude to sex” and that he treated V1 as a “human sexual commodity”.
The judge said much of the abuse took place in a house in Blackrod, which he described as a “lawless den of iniquity” and a “filthy hovel”.
Darbyshire also introduced V1 to the other defendants: Cory Barrett, Jack Poulson, Brandon Harwood, Richard Haslam, Elliot Turner, James Fitzgerald, Ross Corley and Daniel Bainbridge-Flatters.
They were jailed for between two and 17 years for a combined 37 offences against V1, with Poulson, Harwood, Barrett and Haslam convicted of raping her.
In her victim personal statement read out at sentencing, V1 said: “I’d rather be dead most days than deal with all this mental torture and memories.
“I shouldn’t have had to grow up so young and spend the rest of my life ‘healing’ from what these monsters did to me, leaving me in my own prison I built for myself in my own mind for the rest of my life.”
Barrett, 24, from Wigan, was jailed for 12 years after being convicted of five counts of rape and one of assault by penetration.
Poulson, 32, from Bolton, was jailed for 17 years after being convicted of 11 offences, including two counts of rape.
Harwood, 25, from Bolton, was jailed for 10 years after being convicted of rape, attempted rape and sexual activity with a child.
Haslam, 36, from Bolton, was jailed for 16 years after being convicted of seven offences, including three counts of rape.
Turner, 27, from Bolton, was jailed for two years after being convicted of two counts of sexual activity with a child.
Fitzgerald, 37, from Bolton, was jailed for five-and-a-half years after being convicted of assault by penetration.
Corley, 30, from Bolton, was jailed for two years and four months after admitting two counts of sexual activity with a child.
Bainbridge-Flatters, 35, from Bolton, was jailed for seven years after being convicted of four counts of sexual activity with a child, and pleading guilty to supplying cocaine and aggravated vehicle taking.
Lord Justice Edis, Mr Justice Butcher and Judge Morris also dismissed bids by Poulson and Harwood to appeal against their sentences on Wednesday.
Following the ruling, Solicitor General Lucy Rigby said: “Ashley Darbyshire raped two underage girls and abused three more.
“I referred his case to the Court of Appeal under the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme, and I welcome the court’s increase to his sentence today.”
