Broome backpacker rapist Darby Michael Jacoby has sentence doubled on appeal

A rapist who violently sexually attacked a Dutch backpacker at an isolated Broome beach after she rejected him at a pub has had his two-year jail sentence doubled after WA’s highest court ruled the punishment was “manifestly inadequate”. Port Hedland-raised Darby Michael Jacoby, then 20, was in January jailed for two years after he pleaded guilty to sexually penetrating the 26-year-old woman without her consent while in the Kimberley town for work last year. But after an appeal by the Director of Public Prosecutions, who argued the sentence was “manifestly inadequate”, the WA Court of Appeal doubled the sentence to four years behind bars. Jacoby met his victim on May 7 last year at Captain Murphy’s Irish pub, where Jacoby had invited her to leave to have sex with him — but she declined. She rejected his advances again when walking back to her hostel as Jacoby approached her in a silver Nissan Patrol and asked if she wanted to “go and chill”. She said she wanted to go home. Jacoby offered to give her a lift, which she accepted, asking him to first take her to collect her bike from Chinatown. But after collecting the bike, Jacoby instead drove through a McDonald’s drive-through — where he had a minor crash — then drove the woman to Gantheaume Point, despite the victim continually asking where they were going. The woman repeatedly told Jacoby that she wanted to go home and rejected his attempts to kiss her. Jacoby then forced the woman onto the sand and started to take off her pants as she shouted for help, prompting him to snatch the phone in her hand and throw it away. He used one hand to pin down her wrist and put his other hand around her throat to muffle her screams as he attacked her. Afterwards, when Jacoby walked away and saw the victim try to take a photograph of his number plate, he forced her to delete the images. He then removed his victim’s bag and bike from his car and left her stranded at the remote beach at 2.30am. However, she was able to call for help, and Jacoby turned himself into police that day when he learned police were looking for him. “The facts and circumstances of the respondent's offending, in the present case, were very serious,” the appeal judges said. “On numerous occasions the victim expressly and unequivocally refused to consent to having sex with the respondent. The respondent ignored the victim's unequivocal expressions of her absence of consent. “He used significant physical force to subdue her ... the psychological and emotional trauma she has suffered has been profound and ongoing.” The judges were satisfied, even after considering the mitigating factors in the case including Jacoby’s youth, guilty plea, remorse, lack of criminal record, mental health issues and steps towards rehabilitation, that the “sentence was unreasonable or plainly unjust”. “The sentence of two years’ immediate imprisonment was substantially less than the sentence that was open to (the sentencing judge) on a proper exercise of her discretion,” the appeal judges said. “The sentence was manifestly inadequate.” The Court of Appeal said it would have imposed a sentence “in excess of the range of five to six years” imprisonment if there had not been the “substantial mitigating factors”. Jacoby will now be eligible for parole after serving two years, rather than one year. The maximum sentence for sexually penetrating a victim without consent is 14 years’ jail.