Penal man sentenced to seven years for child sexual offences

Jensen La Vende

A 30-year-old Pe­nal man was sen­tenced on Tues­day to 37-and-a-half years im­pris­on­ment with hard labour af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed of five counts of sex­u­al pen­e­tra­tion of a child, fol­low­ing a judge-alone tri­al.

The man will serve sev­en and a half years as High Court Judge Nali­ni Singh or­dered that the sen­tences on each count run con­cur­rent­ly.

The court heard that the of­fences oc­curred on five sep­a­rate oc­ca­sions be­tween Au­gust 2016 and Feb­ru­ary 2017 in Pe­nal and Siparia. The vic­tim was be­tween 15 and 16 years old at the time, while the man was five years her se­nior and a neigh­bour.

The of­fences took place on Au­gust 28, 2016; Jan­u­ary 14 and 17, 2017; and Feb­ru­ary 15 and 25, 2017. Four of the in­ci­dents hap­pened in Pe­nal and one in Siparia.

The Siparia in­ci­dent oc­curred af­ter the child left her home. Af­ter a rel­a­tive con­front­ed her, she was tak­en to po­lice where a re­port was made and the man charged.

Through­out the pe­ri­od, the man knew the child was a mi­nor and en­gaged in a sex­u­al re­la­tion­ship with her.

Singh, in pass­ing sen­tence, found the re­peat­ed acts served as an ag­gra­vat­ing fac­tor, along with the vic­tim’s vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and his de­lib­er­ate ex­ploita­tion of prox­im­i­ty and fa­mil­iar­i­ty.

“This was not a spon­ta­neous or iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent, but a sus­tained course of un­law­ful con­duct over sev­er­al months. The law ex­ists to pro­tect chil­dren, par­tic­u­lar­ly be­cause they are in­ca­pable of giv­ing valid con­sent, and it does not avail an of­fend­er to sug­gest that the child was a will­ing or even an en­thu­si­as­tic par­tic­i­pant.”

What worked as a mit­i­gat­ing fac­tor was the lack of vi­o­lence or co­er­cion. She added that the man has three young chil­dren. The for­mer labour­er was al­so cred­it­ed as hav­ing a low as­sessed risk of re­of­fend­ing, and the fact that sen­tenc­ing oc­curred more than ten years af­ter the of­fences.

Singh stressed that a non‑cus­to­di­al sen­tence would have failed to re­flect the se­ri­ous­ness of the of­fence or the law’s du­ty to pro­tect chil­dren.

“The of­fences con­cern sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty with a child, which the law re­gards as in­her­ent­ly se­ri­ous ir­re­spec­tive of the vir­tu­al com­plainant’s sub­jec­tive per­cep­tion or ap­par­ent con­sent. Even in the ab­sence of force, the law recog­nis­es that chil­dren re­quire pro­tec­tion from sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ty with adults, and the ab­sence of vi­o­lence does not re­duce the in­her­ent se­ri­ous­ness of the con­duct.”

Singh al­so or­dered that the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons cal­cu­late the time the man spent in cus­tody be­fore con­vic­tion and deduct it from his sen­tence.