By AZARD ALI Thursday, June 30 2011

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A HIGH court judge yesterday sentenced a guilty father to 57 years in jail for having sex with his daughter when she was just 11-years-old.

The father was found guilty on Monday on three counts of incest and one charge of grievous sexual assault on his daughter by a jury in the San Fernando High Court.

In sentencing the 42-year-old father for the crimes yesterday, Justice Devan Rampersad remarked on how the man showed no remorse from the dock for the acts he committed, even up to the time when the jury returned the guilty verdicts against him. The man is a former Caroni (1975) Limited worker from a district near San Fernando.

The first two incidents of incest happened in 2003. The third occurred a year later, while the father was charged and was on bail awaiting trial.

Last month, the man went on trial in the third assize court, in which his daughter, who is now 19, testified against him.

In passing sentence yesterday, the judge commented on how the man showed no remorse and the court must frown upon such abuse. He said the court must send a message to society by the sentences it imposes.

It was around Easter in April 2003, when the man had sex with his daughter at their home. She was just 11-years-old and he committed the act again a week later, and, the girl told her mother. Police arrested the father and charged him with two counts of incest and committing a grievous sexual assault by inserting his finger in the girl’s vagina.

Even as he was on bail on those charges, the man in June, 2004, proceeded to have sex with his daughter again stifling her with a pillow over her head.

“You took a pillow and placed it on your daughter’s head, even though there was a restraining order against you in which your wife had warned you not to go to the home,” Rampersad told the unremorseful father. The man’s wife had taken out a restraining order against him, after the first, second and third sexual attacks on their daughter. The order sought to prevent him from going to the home where the family lived.

But sometime in June, 2004, the girl’s brother was warded at hospital and the father went to visit him. Whilst at the hospital, his wife warned him against breaching the restraining order and visiting their daughter who was staying at the grandmother’s house.

“You were out on bail on the first three charges,” Rampersad said, “when you went back to the home even though there was a restraining order and you were warned by the wife not to go home.”

“Notwithstanding you were on bail and you were already facing charges, you proceeded to have sex with your daughter, who was now 13, by placing a pillow over her head. Your wife warned you not to go to the house and this is the aggravating factor.”

The judge asked attorney Michael Rooplal if the father demonstrated any remorse and the attorney replied he received no such instructions. State attorney Shabaana Shah, who successfully prosecuted the father on all four counts, told Rampersad that incest was prevalent in Trinidad and Tobago and invited the court to send a strong message to fathers such as the guilty man. She described as aggravating, the fact that he demonstrated no remorse for his acts against his own daughter.

Rampersad said, “Indeed, by your lack of remorse, the court considers that this would weigh against you in balancing the sentence, in your interest, and the interest of society.”

He then sentenced the father to 20 years on the third count of incest in which he used a pillow. The judge further sentenced him to 15 years each on the other two counts of incest. On the grievous sexual assault, the judge sentenced the father to seven years hard labour.

The judge ordered the sentences to run concurrently with the first sentence of 20 years in which the father used a pillow to subdue his daughter. He would, therefore, serve 20 years in jail with hard labour.

Before ordering the police officers to take the father away, Rampersad said, “I have to balance your interest, against the public interest at large. I have to restore public confidence in the administration of justice that such crimes against children must not be tolerated.”