Leigh’s advocate, Peter Ferbrache, successfully argued that the original sentence from the Royal Court was manifestly excessive and the appeal judges agreed.
Leigh was sentenced in February along with two other people for a series of sexual offences, including sexual activity with a dog seven years previously.
That offence was dealt with by the Magistrate’s Court and did not form part of the appeal.
Delivering the court’s judgment, Judge Robert MacRae KC, the Bailiff of Jersey, said that in their opinion the Royal Court had placed too much weight on two of the offences which involved the sending of indecent messages to a woman, then Leigh’s regular sexual partner.
The court had sentenced while taking into account the totality principle and the impact of all of the offences on Leigh’s partner.
But Mr MacRae said that the court had placed too much weight to the ‘revolting’ content of the stories which Leigh had included in the messages.
It imposed a new sentence of one month, concurrent, on each charge.
Two of the charges for illicit sexual behaviour were said by the Court of Appeal to be the most serious, but Mr MacRae said that there had been no explanation of the Royal Court’s decision to set a starting point of 27 months for these.
Although English guidelines did not have to be applied and Guernsey courts had the right to set their own sentences, had he come before a court in England for these offences he would have been unlikely to have gone to prison, Mr MacRae said.
The appeal court imposed two nine-month sentences, concurrent, for these offences.
The fifth offence was of sending indecent images, some 20 years old, of a local girl who was still a child in the eyes of the law when the photos had been taken.
The appeal judges said that these were more serious offences than the sending of the indecent messages.
An additional one month, consecutive, was added, taking the total to 10 months, consecutive to the two months and two weeks imposed by the Magistrate’s Court.
A new two-year probation order was also handed down while Leigh, 73, who has served the first four months of his sentence, will remain subject to a five-year notification order upon his release.