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Increased jail sentences have been handed out to three men, including one from Leicestershire, who sexually attacked women during burglaries in homes they were entitled to regard as ``safe havens''.
Lord Chief Justice Lord Judge, sitting at the Appeal Court in London with Mr Justice Henriques and Mr Justice Davis, ruled that their original terms were ``unduly lenient''.
In the case of Hyung-Woo Pyo, 23, from Loughborough, who tied up, gagged, blindfolded and raped a fellow Loughborough University student in her halls of residence bedroom and stole property from his 20-year-old victim, the judges increased his eight-year prison sentence to 15 years.
Michael Anigbugu, 34, of Tottenham, north London, who twice raped a 37-year-old woman in her home during a burglary at night and threatened to kill her if she told police, also had his eight-year term replaced with a sentence of 15 years.
The court increased the six-year sentence imposed on mobile dog groomer Mark McGee, 48, from Germoe, near Penzance, Cornwall, to 14 years and six months.
McGee, who was armed with a knife, broke into the home of an elderly man and bound and gagged his carer before robbing her and carrying out a violent sex assault.
Lord Judge emphasised that our homes should be ``our safest refuge''.
The judges made their ruling after hearing submissions from the Solicitor General Edward Garnier QC, who described the three cases as ``safe haven'' cases, where the attacks had taken place in private premises where the women were entitled to feel safe.
He said: ``Despite the sentencing judges' best efforts they fell into error in these particular cases and the sentences in each was unduly lenient.''
Lord Judge said: ``The facts of two of the three cases represent the ultimate nightmare for any woman asleep in her own home at night on her own. The third involves a woman seriously sexually assaulted while caring for a fragile old man whose home was burgled.''