Sentencing delayed for teenaged sex offender
Published:Saturday | July 30, 2022 | 12:05 AMAlbert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer
WESTERN BUREAU:
The parents of a nine-year-old schoolgirl who was raped and murdered four years ago will have to wait until September 16 to get justice for their beloved daughter.
Their wait for justice was further delayed following the postponement of sentencing for a 17-year-old teen convicted for the crimes when the matter was adjourned in the Westmoreland Circuit Court on Thursday and transferred to the Home Circuit Court in Kingston.
The sentencing hearing is being transferred because the current sitting of the Easter session of the Westmoreland Circuit Court comes to an end this month and will not sit again until October, and the Westmoreland court does not have sufficient space to handle the matter.
Despite the postponement, the victim’s parents told the court that they will make arrangements to attend the sentencing in the Corporate Area.
“Unfortunately, two of the orders that Your Lordship made in relation to the psychiatric and psychological evaluation of the accused are not yet done,” Paula Llewellyn, the director of public prosecution said.
According to her, the authority in the justice system who has the responsibility to do the assessment has not yet done so, and has indicated that a date in September would be sufficient.
“Because of the absence of the psychiatric and physiology reports, this sentence cannot take place today. It has to be adjourned until the 16th of September in the Home Circuit Court where the accused will be brought and his lawyers to appear via video link,” Justice Courtney Daye said.
“I have to try and understand the accused as best as possible before I can give a sentence. He might not think it is important now, but it is necessary, given his age at the time and his age now ... he’s under 18,” Daye said as he stressed the needs to have the evaluation he ordered earlier this month.
The convicted teen was remanded at the Metcalfe Street Juvenile Centre in Kingston.
A six-member jury on July 1 delivered a guilty verdict on all three counts for raping, buggering, and strangling to death of the nine-year-old schoolgirl in 2018.
During the two-week trial before reaching a verdict, the court heard that on June 5, 2018, the nine-year-old girl was sexually assaulted and killed by the teenager, who lived near her in the parish after she accepted his invitation to pick apples as they walked home from school.
TESTIMONY
The conviction came after the jury heard that the girl died of asphyxia caused by manual strangulation and that she had lacerations to the vagina and anus.
The court had also heard testimony from the head of the DNA unit at the Government’s Institute of Forensic Science and Legal Medicine, Crystal Beepot, who provided forensic evidence, that material found in the anus of the schoolgirl matched the DNA of the convicted teen. The evidence was compared with samples taken from his fingernails and underpants.
The teen, in an unsworn statement, admitted that he had sexual intercourse with the girl in her vagina and not her anus.
He said that he was forced to do so after he was held up by two men, one carrying a machete and the other a gun and that he knew one of the men.