Rapist sentenced to 13 years behind bars

A man who threatened his ex-girlfriend with a knife and raped her has been sentenced to 13 years in prison.

Grand Court heard on Friday that the 47-year-old, who cannot be named for legal reasons, ambushed the woman at the secret address she moved to after they split up in a bid to avoid contact with the man, who believed she had cheated on him.

Justice Dale Palmer said, “He waylaid her near where she disembarked from public transportation.”

He added the man had discovered where she was living, “came at her from behind” with a blade and threatened her to the point where she was “in fear for her life”.

The woman told the judge-only trial in April, “He said if I screamed or said a word, he would cut my throat.”

The court heard she was held against her will for three days before she was able to contact police.

The incident happened on Friday, 30 Aug. last year.

Palmer said the man had raped his victim that night in her apartment and monitored her phone to check her messages, and that he had remained with her over the weekend.

She reported the incident to police on that Monday morning.

The defendant claimed during the trial that the intercourse was consensual and denied assaulting her.

But Palmer told him at the time, “The victim has all the hallmark signs of a sexual assault survivor.

“I believe her evidence and I find her to be a credible and reliable witness.”

The judge said by video link during the sentencing hearing on Friday that the woman was “still traumatised by the incident, scared of the defendant and scared for her life”.

He added she was constantly “looking over her shoulder” and suffered flashbacks, was unable to be alone and suffered from sleeplessness and anxiety.

Palmer said that the rape offence merited a starting sentence of 15 years in a range from 10 to 19 years.

But he added that the defendant, who was brought up in Jamaica, had no convictions there or in Cayman, where he had lived for years, and had suffered as a child at the hands of a brutal and abusive father.

He added that the man also had difficulty in understanding the gravity of what he had done and had been assessed as “a medium risk overall” for reoffending.

Palmer said, “He suffered significant abuse and degradation in his formative years, which had affected his ability to form relationships.”

But, he added, the sentence had to show “disapproval, deterrence, punishment and protection of women in society”.

The man was also convicted of an early assault on the woman in June 2024 causing actual bodily harm, as well as the rape and threat to kill or cause serious harm, which had caused her to fear him.

Palmer said the June assault caused “relatively minor” injuries, but aggravating factors included the woman having to move away afterwards and that there had been earlier incidents of violence.

But, he added, rape was “among the gravest offences in our criminal law.”

Palmer said the defendant was entitled to consideration of his previous clean record, as well as for his own traumatic upbringing, which had “affected his own emotional development”, all of which mitigated against a sentence at the top of the range.

He imposed a sentence of three years for the knife offence and threats, and nine months for the June assault.

But he ordered all the sentences to run concurrently and that time in custody and while on bail with an electronic tag and curfew should be taken into account.

Palmer told the defendant that, after release, he must never come within 100 feet of the woman in public or in private and have no contact with her directly or indirectly, including through social media.

He also granted an application from senior Crown counsel Nicole Petit to apply for a sexual harm prevention order for additional restrictions on the defendant.