High Court judge Justice Brian Cottle will on Thursday sentence a 46-year-old father of 11 children aged 3 to 29 who has maintained his innocence after a jury convicted him of attempting to rape his 5-year-old daughter but failed to reach a verdict on charges that he raped another daughter who was 7.
“I am innocent. I will like you to ease up on me, please,” the man told the court on Monday, after his lawyer, Carl Williams had mitigated on his behalf.
After deliberating for 3 hours and 55 minutes on May 10, the jury also found the man guilty of indecently assaulting the girl whom they also convicted him of attempting to rape.
Williams later said outside of court that the jury was “confused”. However, another lawyer who was not involved in the case said that the verdicts show that the jury had considered each of the counts carefully.
Four jurors held that the man was guilty of the charge that he raped the older daughter, while the same number of jurors felt he was not guilty and one juror was undecided.
The jury was similarly divided — four guilty, four not guilty and one undecided — on two other counts of the same charge involving the same girl.
The court declared a mistrial on those three counts.
Meanwhile, on each of the three counts of attempted unlawful sexual intercourse with the 5-year-old complaint, seven members of the jury found the defendant guilty and two held that he was not guilty, resulting in a conviction.
Then on each of the two counts of indecent assault of the same child, eight jurors felt that the defendant was guilty while one was undecided.
Before the verdicts were given, the foreman had told the court that the jury — made up of seven women and two men — had not reached a unanimous decision on any of the charges.
The foreman said he did not think further discussion would break the deadlock.
The defendant was accused of committing the sex crimes on various dates between July 31, 2019 and Dec. 1, 2021.
He was charged with rape of the girls but not charged with incest because his name is not listed as the children’s father on their birth certificate.
On Monday, Williams, mitigating on behalf of the defendant, said he agreed with the prosecution’s submission regarding the consequences and the seriousness of the offence being at the highest level because the complainant was less than 10 years old.
The lawyer said he also agreed that the court should not consider a starting point higher than 19 years imprisonment.
“There are aggravating factors of the offence, which I would agree, as stated by the prosecution in their submission to this court. However, with regards to this offender, the mitigating factors definitely outweigh the aggravating factors of the offender,” Williams said, adding that there are no aggravating factors with respect to the offender.
“Before this, he had a clean record; he was a virgin to the law. He should be given credit for this.”
Regarding the indecent assault conviction, Williams said he agreed with the prosecution’s assessment of the consequences and the seriousness of the offence.
“But here, the court must adopt a starting point of less than five years. He has maintained his innocence right through this trial so I cannot reference anything to remorse.”
Williams said he was aware that the offences were committed over a period of time and that the totality principle would apply to the sentencing exercise.
“I am of the view that this prisoner is a good candidate for rehabilitation,” Williams said but added that he was not sure whether there are programmes at the prison to deal with the defendant’s apparent addiction to alcohol.
“There is no doubt that a custodial sentence is warranted in this case. But, let it not be a sentence that would prevent him from seeing the light of day. It is always good to temper justice with mercy. There is nothing I think that I can do to further assist this court in this sentencing exercise,” Williams said.
Senior Crown Counsel Richie Maitland and Crown Counsel Maria Jackson-Richards appeared for the Crown in the trial.
Don’t think about the defendant; think about the victims, his own children, both under eight years old. These children depended on him for security and support, he abuse them, he let them down, he is nasty. Punished his ass with no less than twenty years in prison.