A 62-year-old Morvant man who admitted to sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl six months after he completed a prison sentence for a similar attack on another child, is set to be released from prison in less than a year.
Gerard Dowers, of Second Caledonia, pleaded guilty to grievous sexual assault late last year and was sentenced to seven years and ten months in prison by High Court Judge Gail Gonzales yesterday morning. However, Dowers will be released after serving nine months and 20 days in prison as the six years, ten months and ten days he spent on remand before getting bail and after he pleaded guilty to the offence was deducted from his sentence.
According to the evidence in the case, recounted by Justice Gonzales in sentencing Dowers, the attack on the child occurred on an unknown date between January 3 and 14, 2012, when the child’s mother, who he was in a relationship with, was in the hospital.
Dowers took the child into her mother’s bedroom and undressed her before forcing her to perform oral sex on him. He then performed oral sex on her.
The child reported the incident to her mother, who made a report to the police. Dowers was arrested several months later and charged.
At the start of the hearing, Justice Gonzales asked Dowers whether he wanted to maintain his guilty plea as she pointed out that he denied any wrongdoing when he was interviewed by a probation officer and a psychiatrist late last year. Dowers claimed that he lied in the interviews as he was ashamed of what he had done.
“I am sorry for that. I am not perfect in everything I talk about. Sorry, I put the court through this,” he said.
In deciding on the appropriate sentence for Dowers, Justice Gonzales noted that the maximum sentence for the offence (life imprisonment) was not appropriate in the circumstances of the case. She began with a starting sentence of 12 years but increased it by a year as she noted the age of the victim, and that Dowers attacked her after completing his prison term for a similar attack on another minor.
Based on the fact that Dowers did not commit a third attack or any other crime after 2012, she opted to reduce the sentence by 18 months. Justice Gonzales then applied a one-third discount for Dowers’ guilty plea.
As part of her sentence, Justice Gonzales ordered that he register as a sex offender within seven days of his release from prison and report to the police every three months for 18 months.
She also ordered that his information be placed on the online sex offenders’ register by the Commissioner of Police.
“The reason I am doing this is that children need to be protected and parents must know who are living in their communities,” she said.
