Derek Achong

A self-con­fessed se­r­i­al rapist has sought and re­ceived for­give­ness from one of his vic­tims he at­tacked in 2007. 

Kester Ben­jamin made the ap­peal yes­ter­day, as he was giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ad­dress the vic­tim of the crime af­ter plead­ing guilty to griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault and the ab­duc­tion of the woman dur­ing a vir­tu­al hear­ing be­fore High Court Judge Lisa Ram­sumair-Hinds. 

Ben­jamin said: “I know my words might not heal the hurt that I caused you and it will nev­er heal the scars but I want you to know that I am re­al­ly, re­al­ly sor­ry.”

Ben­jamin, who in 2008 was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to 20 years in prison for rap­ing a woman in 2002, claimed it took him sev­er­al years of in­tro­spec­tion while in prison.

“Now this is not an ex­cuse, it is just an ex­pla­na­tion and I think I owe you that ex­pla­na­tion,” Ben­jamin said.

Ben­jamin claimed that while in prison, he en­rolled in nu­mer­ous pro­grammes which sought to help him curb his urges. 

“I would not say that I am 100 per cent cured but I know what I have to ab­stain from to en­sure that I don’t ever do some­thing like what I did to you that night,” he claimed, as he not­ed that he had to ab­stain from pornog­ra­phy. 

“Most peo­ple do not un­der­stand sex­u­al per­ver­sion. I have lived it and un­der­stand it, so I would like to help oth­er peo­ple go­ing through this be­cause most of so­ci­ety will just take peo­ple like me and shaft them be­cause it is a crime no­body likes,” he said.

Ben­jamin claimed that while in prison, his sis­ter was sim­i­lar­ly ab­duct­ed and robbed but not raped. 

“Hear­ing that made me un­der­stand what I was putting peo­ple through and I de­cid­ed then and there not to be the prob­lem any­more but to be­come part of the so­lu­tion,” Ben­jamin claimed. 

Ben­jamin went as far as to ex­tend an apol­o­gy to his oth­er vic­tims, whose at­tacks he was ac­quit­ted for the past. 

“There are some cas­es that I won and I did, in fact, com­mit the crime. I don’t know if I can apol­o­gise to those peo­ple as well,” Ben­jamin said, be­fore be­ing stopped by Jus­tice Ram­sumair-Hinds, who told him she could on­ly con­sid­er the case be­fore her. 

He al­so of­fered to pay com­pen­sa­tion to his vic­tim if and when he is even­tu­al­ly re­leased from prison.

Giv­en an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­spond to Ben­jamin’s state­ment, the vic­tim, who was present through­out the hear­ing, took it and said she ac­cept­ed his apol­o­gy. 

“It was not a good ex­pe­ri­ence and is still not a good ex­pe­ri­ence. I still feel all types of emo­tions but I can ac­cept your apol­o­gy,” she said. 

The vic­tim said when she was first in­vit­ed by the DPP’s Of­fice to par­tic­i­pate in the plea process and pro­vide a vic­tim im­pact state­ment, her fam­i­ly strong­ly ad­vised her against it. 

“My fam­i­ly was adamant that I should not par­tic­i­pate but I felt as though it was im­por­tant to me and for oth­er peo­ple so I took the ini­tia­tive to do so,” she said. 

She claimed that while she long har­boured anger to­wards Ben­jamin, she was sur­prised that her stance soft­ened af­ter a pre­vi­ous hear­ing, as she felt “sor­ry for him.”

“My re­sponse to them (her fam­i­ly) was that God would know what is in his heart and whether he is re­formed and sor­ry,” she said.

She stat­ed that she hoped that he could use his ex­pe­ri­ence to pos­i­tive­ly help oth­er sim­i­lar­ly af­flict­ed men. 

“What you are go­ing through is a sick­ness that did not start in your adult years. I am sure that there would be some­thing that can be traced back to your child­hood that you may not be aware of that would have caused you to be the way you are,” she said.

Ram­sumair-Hinds com­mend­ed the vic­tim for her re­sponse. 

“You are a woman of great courage to do what you just did...That is what I con­sid­er restora­tive jus­tice,” Ram­sumair-Hinds said.

Ac­cord­ing to the sum­ma­ry of facts in the case, which was read out dur­ing the hear­ing, the at­tack oc­curred on Au­gust 29, 2007, when the vic­tim, then 17 years old, was re­turn­ing home af­ter at­tend­ing class­es at an in­sti­tu­tion in Pe­tit Bourg. 

The vic­tim trav­elled to Port-of-Spain and was wait­ing for a taxi to take her to Diego Mar­tin when she, a man and a cou­ple board­ed Ben­jamin’s car. 

The vic­tim claimed that he dropped the man and the cou­ple off and left her for last as her stop was off-route. 

The vic­tim claimed that she be­came wor­ried when Ben­jamin drove past the turn-off for her stop and said that he claimed that he had to pick up his wife and chil­dren first. 

The vic­tim said she was scared and was able to call a friend on her cell­phone to tell her of what was tran­spir­ing. 

She claimed that Ben­jamin drove up a steep in­cline and parked on a flat area bound­ing a precipice. 
She claimed that she tried to call her un­cle but he hit the phone from her hand and at­tempt­ed to tie her up but she re­sist­ed. 

She claimed that he then forced her to per­form oral sex on him. Ben­jamin was about to rape her when a group of po­lice of­fi­cers, who were on pa­trol in the area stopped next to the car and res­cued her.

Un­der the terms of the plea agree­ment, the DPP’s Of­fice agreed to rec­om­mend a 20-year sen­tence for griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault and 10 years for the ab­duc­tion.

Ad­dress­ing Ben­jamin, Ram­sumair-Hinds said that she would have to con­sid­er the rec­om­mend­ed sen­tences and de­ter­mine if they are ap­pro­pri­ate in the cir­cum­stances. 

She al­so not­ed that while the DPP’s Of­fice and his at­tor­neys rec­om­mend­ed that his sen­tences run from when he was ar­rest­ed and placed on re­mand in 2007, she would have to con­sid­er the fact that his time in cus­tody was large­ly due to him be­ing con­vict­ed of a pre­vi­ous at­tack. 

She stat­ed that she would al­so have to place him on the Na­tion­al Sex­u­al Of­fend­ers Reg­istry. 

Ben­jamin was rep­re­sent­ed by Raphael Mor­gan of the Pub­lic De­fend­ers’ De­part­ment while Danielle Thomp­son pros­e­cut­ed. 

Ben­jamin is ex­pect­ed to be sen­tenced on April 25.