THE High Court sent a man who had unlawful sex with his 14-year-old niece twice in 2018 in Makira-Ulawa Province to prison for nine years.
The now 31- year-old defendant was sentenced after he pleaded guilty to two counts of Sexual Intercourse with a Child under 15 years of age.
Judge John Keniapisia, in his sentencing remarks, said it was appropriate to impose such a concurrent sentence due to the serious aggravating factors mentioned in this case.
“As I stand back and look at the sentence of 9 years, it is appropriate to impose such a concurrent sentence due to the serious aggravating factors mentioned above.
“And this being a multiple offending, I mentioned above that this is a case where the aggravating factors far outweighed the mitigating factors.
“The factors attracting considerable aggravation are breach of position of trust, sexual abuse on a young girl, repetitive offending and the defendant abducted and held the victim in detention and treated her like his wife in having sexual intercourse with her in a room in his house,” Judge Keniapisia said.
He said a room in an uncle’s house should be a safe haven for a niece.
“Parliament remedied the prevalence of sexual abuse of women and girls through a legislative amendment in 2016, where new offences were created and increase in penalties were introduced.
“Parliament’s intent in curtailing a serious social sexual abuse issue was eminent in the 2016 Act.
“Court in turn must also give remedial sentencing response by imposing heavy deterrent custodial sentence terms,” he said.
Judge Keniapisia further added that the Court of Appeal continues to renounce lenient sentences imposed by the High Court for sexual offending under the 2016 Act.
“The Court of Appeal time and again says this lenient attitude must stop.”
The incidents in this case occurred on two occasions in February 2018 in a village on Makira Island.
The defendant, who is the cousin brother of the victim’s mother, was 24 years old while the victim was 14 years old at the time of the offences.
On 17 February 2018, at around 1am, the defendant took the victim to a beach from her house by telling her that his wife (victim’s aunt) wanted to see her.
Whilst on their way to the defendant’s house, the defendant had sex with the victim at the beach.
From 18 to 20 February 2018, the defendant’s wife was away.
Judge Keniapisia said the defendant took the victim away from her house and kept the victim at his house when his wife was away.
Judge Keniapisia said the facts say that the parents went looking for the victim because she was missing from their house.
He said then, the victim’s parents found out that her very own blood related uncle kept her in his house to have sex with her.
“And then he got angry. That is how insensitive the accused was,” Judge Keniapisia said.
After imposing the sentence, Judge Keniapisia ordered that the three months the defendant spent in pre-trial custody be deducted from the nine years jail term.
By ASSUMPTA BUCHANAN
Solomon Star, Honiara
