Deportation recommended for St Lucian child molester

Defence attorney Simon Clarke believes a sentence of time served and a deportation order would suffice in the case of a St Lucian man convicted of indecently assaulting a five-year-old girl.

The lawyer made the sentencing submissions on Monday before Madam Justice Pamela Beckles in the No. 5 Supreme Court.

Clarke was mitigating for the 28-year-old convict who has been on remand at Dodds since he was charged over two years ago with committing the offence against the child on November 7, 2020.

Before the attorney’s submissions, the now-convicted man, whose name is being withheld to protect the child since he resided in the same building as her, apologised.

“I say sorry,” he said.

Clarke told the court that the offence for which his client was convicted merited a custodial sentence.

He pointed to the aggravating factors of the case as the breach of trust, the fact that the crime was committed against a minor, the prevalence of such offences, and the effect the act had on the child and her mother.

Mitigating, he said, was the fact that no violence was used in the commission of the crime. Also going in his favour was his early guilty plea, even though it came when a trial had commenced, the defence attorney added. The lawyer said his client had also cooperated with police, was assessed as being at a medium risk of reoffending, and was contrite.

He asked that the court temper justice with mercy and impose a starting sentence of three and a half years in prison with deductions for the guilty plea and the 888 days he had spent on remand, leaving him with time served.

Clarke said a deportation order could also be made as the convict had been visiting Barbados when the offence occurred.

Principal State Counsel Krystal Delaney concurred with the submissions. However, she stated that one of the aggravating factors of the case was the age difference between the convict and the child. She also pointed to the nature of the assault, saying that the convicted man did not simply touch the child but rubbed his penis on her privates.

The prosecutor said she had “no difficulty” with the convict being sentenced to time served, as he had been on remand since 2020, and being handed over to immigration authorities for deportation.

The offender will know his fate on May 4 when Justice Beckles sentences him.