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Saturday, February 22, 2025

Uncle jailed for molesting niece on Christmas Day

... victim dies before trial

by

Derek Achong
28 days ago
20250125
Hall of Justice in Port of Spain.

Hall of Justice in Port of Spain.

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A 47-year-old man from cen­tral Trinidad has been sen­tenced to 12 years in prison for mo­lest­ing his 10-year-old niece on Christ­mas morn­ing in 2009.

The man was found guilty of griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault and in­de­cent as­sault by a nine-mem­ber ju­ry ear­li­er this month and was sen­tenced by High Court Judge Kathy-Ann Wa­ter­man-Latchoo on Thurs­day.

The vic­tim was not able to wit­ness her un­cle be­ing brought to jus­tice as she passed away be­fore his case went to tri­al. Her ev­i­dence giv­en against him dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry in the case was read to the ju­ry.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence pre­sent­ed by se­nior pros­e­cu­tor Dy­lan Mar­tin, the at­tack oc­curred while the vic­tim and her younger sis­ter were spend­ing part of the Christ­mas school va­ca­tion at his home, which he shared with his com­mon-law wife and three chil­dren. Around 10.30 pm on Christ­mas Eve, the un­cle’s wife left the house to go to work. Around 1 am on Christ­mas morn­ing, the vic­tim was sleep­ing in a room with her sis­ter, when her un­cle came in, woke her up and took her to the liv­ing room where a porno­graph­ic film was show­ing on the tele­vi­sion.

Her un­cle made her sit down next to him and cov­ered her mouth with his hand while he used the oth­er to touch her breasts and vagi­na. She claimed that she tried to fight him off but he over­pow­ered her. She al­so claimed that she tried to scream but he tight­ened his grip on her mouth.

The at­tack end­ed when the vic­tim’s sis­ter woke up and walked in­to the room. The vic­tim re­turned to the bed­room with her sis­ter. She stayed awake un­til the morn­ing when she told her aunt what tran­spired as she ar­rived home from work. Her aunt took no ac­tion. The vic­tim told her moth­er about the at­tack when she ar­rived to pick her and her sib­ling up on Box­ing Day.

Her moth­er made a re­port to the po­lice and the girl was med­ical­ly ex­am­ined. Her un­cle tes­ti­fied in his de­fence dur­ing the tri­al and de­nied any wrong­do­ing. While be­ing cross-ex­am­ined by Mar­tin he even claimed that the vic­tim and her sis­ter were not at his home when the at­tack oc­curred. Af­ter hear­ing a mit­i­ga­tion plea from his de­fence lawyer and Mar­tin re­spond­ed, Jus­tice Wa­ter­man-Latchoo sen­tenced the man to 12 years with hard labour for griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault and three years for in­de­cent as­sault.

She or­dered that he serve the sen­tences con­cur­rent­ly mean­ing that he would be re­leased af­ter com­plet­ing the high­er sen­tence.

The judge al­so or­dered that he re­port to the Cunu­pia Po­lice Sta­tion with­in sev­en days of his even­tu­al re­lease to reg­is­ter as a sex of­fend­er. Once reg­is­tered, he would be re­quired to re­port to the po­lice every three months for eight years.

Jus­tice Wa­ter­man-Latchoo al­so di­rect­ed that the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice pub­lish his name and par­tic­u­lars of his con­vic­tion on the pub­lic sex of­fend­er web­site.

The Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Niara Boodan.


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