Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

A 35-year-old watch­man, who ad­mit­ted rap­ing his eight-year-old sis­ter 11 times over a three-year pe­ri­od when he was a teenag­er, has been sen­tenced to al­most nine years in prison.

The man, who can­not be iden­ti­fied to pro­tect the iden­ti­ty of his vic­tim, was sen­tenced by High Court Judge Kathy-Ann Wa­ter­man-Latchoo yes­ter­day af­ter plead­ing guilty to 11 in­cest charges.

Ac­cord­ing to the ev­i­dence in the case, the man first at­tacked his sib­ling in 2009 while they were at their home in Port-of-Spain dur­ing the East­er school va­ca­tion. 

The girl was re­port­ed­ly play­ing with a toy when her broth­er, who was 19 years old at the time, in­vit­ed her to join him in the bed­room they shared. 

He un­dressed and raped her be­fore warn­ing her against re­port­ing him.

He at­tacked her ten more times be­fore she even­tu­al­ly re­port­ed the abuse to her step­moth­er and grand­moth­er in 2012.

He was ar­rest­ed and charged af­ter a re­port was made to the po­lice and she was med­ical­ly ex­am­ined. The man de­nied any wrong­do­ing, and his case was set for tri­al af­ter a pre­lim­i­nary in­quiry.

How­ev­er, as the tri­al was due to com­mence, the man re­quest­ed a max­i­mum sen­tence in­di­ca­tion (MSI). In a MSI, a judge in­di­cates the high­est pos­si­ble sen­tence an ac­cused may re­ceive if they plead guilty and avoid a tri­al.

He agreed to plead guilty to the charges af­ter Jus­tice Wa­ter­man-Latchoo set a start­ing sen­tence of 15 years in prison with hard labour.

In de­cid­ing on his fi­nal sen­tence yes­ter­day, Jus­tice Wa­ter­man-Latchoo gave a two-year dis­count based on the fact that he did not com­mit any crimes af­ter he was re­leased on bail pend­ing tri­al.

Af­ter ap­ply­ing a one-third dis­count for his guilty plea, the man was left with a re­main­ing sen­tence of eight years and eight months. 

As part of his sen­tence, Jus­tice Wa­ter­man-Latchoo or­dered that he reg­is­ter as a sex of­fend­er on the Na­tion­al Sex Of­fend­er Reg­is­ter with­in sev­en days of his even­tu­al re­lease. 

The judge al­so di­rect­ed that in­for­ma­tion about his con­vic­tion be pub­lished on the pub­lic sex of­fend­er web­site with­in 14 days. 

He was al­so or­dered to re­port to po­lice four times a year for six years. 

The case was pros­e­cut­ed by Dy­lan Mar­tin and Niara Boodan.