Molester ordered to pay $2 500 to victim in his 2016 crime

A man who touched the private parts of the seven-year-old has been ordered to pay her $2 500 in compensation but has the opportunity to avoid further jail time.

Madam Justice Laurie-Ann Smith-Bovell imposed a combination sentence – a suspended sentence and a compensation order – on the offender on Friday, giving him until April 29 to pay up or he will go to prison for 201 days for the crime he committed 17 years ago.

As the molester was the neighbour of the victim, his name is being withheld by Barbados TODAY to protect her identity.

Justice Smith-Bovell, in handing down the sentence in the No. 4 Supreme Court, said while touching anyone sexually without their consent was “a violation”, committing the offence against a minor was even more appalling.

According to the facts disclosed during the trial, the child went to play with a friend who lived next door on August 25, 2006. She went into the room of her friend’s uncle and was sitting on the bed when he touched her vagina and buttocks. 

“Sexual offences are serious offences and should be treated as such. The psychological damage done to the complainant is oftentimes quite damaging and has far-reaching consequences,” Justice Smith-Bovell said.

“Sexual touches should never be done without the consent of the person who is being touched. In this case, it is a seven-year-old; it’s worse.

“Anything that is done without the consent of that person is a violation of that person. In situations like this, when the virtual complainant cannot consent, that makes the violation more egregious.”

The maximum penalty for indecent assault is five years in prison. 

While saying she agreed with the prosecution and defence that this was not the worst case of indecent assault, “it is clearly not the least serious . . . either”.

“Clearly, this situation does not merit the maximum. However, based on the objective seriousness of the offence, the court considers the starting point of two years and six months,” Justice Smith-Bovell said, pointing to the complainant’s age and the man touching her privates as the aggravating features of the offence. 

Also aggravating, she said, was “the breach of trust and relationship between the virtual complainant and the now-convicted man as an elderly neighbour whose house the virtual complainant frequented to play with friends”.

The judge also noted that the complainant still suffered emotionally and psychologically and continued to be subjected to negative comments from the molester’s family.

The mitigating factors, she pointed out, were the fact that no overt violence was used and there was no evidence of premeditation.

Based on those factors, the starting sentence was increased by one year, bringing it to three years and six months. However, given that the mitigating factors outweighed the aggravating features, the sentence was then reduced by a year, taking it back to two years and six months.

Eighteen months were then deducted for the delay in the case being heard and another 164 days for the time the man had spent on remand. This left the first-time offender with 201 days left to serve. The sentence was, however, suspended for one year.

“I am very sorry I find myself in this position. I am sorry,” the convicted man said when he addressed the court on Friday.