KINGSTOWN, St Vincent (CMC)— A St Vincent High Court judge has sentenced a 56-year-old man to nearly 34 years in jail after he was found guilty of raping his seven-year-old daughter.
Justice Brian Cottle sentenced the man to 33 years, 10 months and 18 days in jail for four counts of rape, four counts of incest and one count of indecent assault against his daughter, who was six or seven years old when he first violated her.
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The court heard that the crimes took place between June 2017 and December 2021 and the child was 10 years old when a report was made on her behalf against her father, with whom she was living at the time.
The child recounted that at about age six or seven, while in Grade 3, her father went into the bedroom she shared with her sister, woke her up and told her to follow him into his bedroom.
When they got there, he reportedly instructed her to take off her clothes and lie on the bed, which she did.
The man then proceeded to rape the child. After the act, he told her to put back on her clothes and go back to the bedroom and not tell anyone. The child complied.
The man did the same thing to the girl sometime after the volcanic eruption of April 2021, when the child was about nine-years-old.
The child confided in her best friend about what had happened between her and her father.
During the lunch break that day, they both went to their former class teacher and the child told the teacher that her father usually had sexual intercourse with her, the last time being that very morning.
The teacher reported the matter to the principal who then reported it to a senior education officer, who instructed the principal to report it to the police.
As part of their investigation, the police took the child to a health facility, where a medical examination revealed an absent hymen and vaginal discharge indicative of a sexual infection.
The man faced a maximum of five years for indecent assault, life imprisonment for unlawful sexual intercourse (USI) with a girl under the age of 13 and 40 years for incest.
Justice Cottle, presiding at his last case before ending a 17-year career as a judge, noted that the man had no previous convictions for offenses of a sexual nature.
