robbery and sexual assault was granted on Friday but he will still remain behind bars for the same length of time.

Anthony Ricardo Richardson, 24, had his appeal against the "harsh and excessive'' sentence he received in Supreme Court in April after pleading guilty to an attack on a visiting Canadian Senator and an Ontario couple in August, 1996, upheld by Court of Appeal judges.

Richardson pleaded guilty to three counts of armed robbery and to forcing a woman to perform a sexual act on him. He was sentenced to 24 years for the sexual assault and three concurrent ten year terms for each of the robberies.

The trio of Court of Appeal judges said Richardson's plea of guilty to the offences was a mitigating circumstance and warranted a discount.

They noted that the sentences of 24 years and ten years were at the top of the scale for the respective offences and should have been reserved for more serious crimes.

The judges ruled that the sentence of 24 years for the sexual assault should be reduced to 16 years and the sentences for the robberies should be reduced to eight year sentences which would run concurrently.

But they also said the sexual assault sentence and the robbery sentence should not run concurrently as they were different crimes. They reduced the sexual assault sentence to 16 years and ordered that it should run consecutively to the robbery sentences.

Richardson told Supreme Court that he had been at the lowest point of his life on August 12, 1996, when he broke into the Middle Road, Southampton, home of Telco executive Linda Oliver and confronted Nova Scotia Senator Donald Oliver and his two companions with a 12-inch knife.

He tied up the two men and then took the woman into an adjoining room where he forced her to perform oral sex. He then fled the scene with money and jewellery.