Convict issues apology as rape case enters setencing phase

The Crown has asked a High Court judge to consider imposing a lenghty sentence on a St Michael man who admitted to rape, buggery, assault and kidnapping of a woman a decade ago.

But the defence has claimed that the convicted man who is currently on bail had spent a “significant amount of time” on remand at HMP Dodds in connection with the matter and urged the High Court not to impose any further sentence.

Crown Counsel Romario Straker and defence attorney Angella Mitchell-Gittens made the submissions before Justice Randall Worrell in the case of Derick St Elmo Ward.

The Skeetes Road, Garden Land, St Michael resident had pleaded guilty before the No. 2 Supreme Court to having sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent and buggering her between July 21 and 22, 2010.

He also admitted to assaulting her on July 21 and unlawfully detaining her at Skeetes Road against her will, on July 22, with intent to have sexual intercourse with her.

Appearing before Justice Randall Worrell the convicted man said: “I apologise. I am sorry for what I have done.”

He said in a short address to the court that he has “spent a lot of time in prison” but had stayed out of trouble with the law since his release in September 2019.

“When I was getting in trouble I was under the influence of drugs and alcohol and I don’t do those things anymore,” he added.

In mitigating on his behalf, Mitchell-Gittens pointed out that her client had committed “serious offences” against one complainant. She said he had also expressed remorse and pleaded guilty to the offence, but that it did not appear as if the crimes had any significant planning behind them.

The time that Ward spent on remand at Dodds will be officially disclosed to the court at the next sitting on November 1. But the defence attorney submitted that her client had spent a significant amount of time on remand at the St Philip institution. Mitchell-Gittens urged the court not to impose additional time on Ward for the crime.

But Crown Counsel Romario Straker said that the offences were so serious that some attracted a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. He said while a custodial sentence was warranted, the court should consider imposing a starting sentence of 24 years in prison.

The prosecutor said aggravating to the case was that there was a significant degree of force used and that Ward had brandished a weapon while committing the offences. He submitted that the convict did not use protection when committing the acts of rape and buggery which he pointed out was done a number of times throughout the night.

Ward is known to the courts but had no prior convictions for similar offences.

Starker further submitted that from the starting 24-year sentence deductions should be granted for Ward’s guilty plea, the delay in getting the matter heard before the court as well as the time spent on remand. This sentence, he said, should be backdated to run concurrently with any sentence that Ward was serving previously.