Man jailed for 12 years for raping 12-year-old girl

Cedric Everton Ellis, 54, has been jailed for 12 years for raping a 12-year-old girl.

Grand Court Justice Cheryll Richards, in handing down her sentence on 23 Dec., said, “The words reprehensible and seriously wrong are inadequate” to describe Ellis’ conduct.

The sentence judgment, which was posted recently on the judicial.ky website, noted a sexual harm prevention order, issued by the court against Ellis for the protection of children, would remain in place for five years after his release.

Ellis, a father to seven adult children and a grandfather to two grandchildren, had been scheduled to face a jury trial in September 2024, but on the date the trial was supposed to begin, he pleaded guilty to the rape, which occurred on 20 March 2024.

According to the agreed facts of the case, the girl, whose family had known Ellis for many years, had been raped in his apartment. When her mother came to the apartment when trying to find the child, the court heard, Ellis had told the girl to hide. He told her mother he had not seen the girl, and then got in his car and drove off, coming back a short time later.

The mother kept watch on the apartment, and saw her daughter leave it, the court heard. When the girl told her what had happened, the mother contacted police. Ellis immediately went on the run and remained a fugitive for 11 days, before surrendering to police.

In arriving at the sentence, Richards noted that the child’s young age made her “particularly vulnerable”.

Using a starting point of 15 years, the judge stated that Ellis’s attempt to hide the victim in his apartment while her mother looked for her, the fact that he went into hiding for 11 days following the rape, and that he exploited a family friendship, were aggravating factors, which increased the sentence by six months.

The judge took into account Ellis’s previous lack of convictions, previous good character, his remorse, his voluntary enrolment in rehabilitation programmes since his arrest, and his eventual guilty plea as mitigating factors that reduced the sentence by 40 months.

This brought the total sentence to 12 years.

Richards said the crime may never had been discovered if it were not for the child’s mother’s diligence. “The defendant lied when confronted by her mother,” she wrote in her judgment. “To add an air of truth to his lie, he got into his car and drove away, leaving the victim inside the house, having told her to stay in there.

“Had it not been that the mother remained in the area in hiding, keeping watch over the house, the defendant would have likely succeeded in his effort to conceal the child and to conceal what he had done.”

The judge said the sentence must include elements of punishment and deterrence. “Like-minded individuals must know that this kind of behaviour will not be condoned by the justice system and will be punished to the full extent that the law allows,” Richards said.