A man who groomed and raped two 13-year-old girls and sent sexual messages to an 11-year-old should serve his sentence in a hospital because of psychiatric problems arising from being left for dead as a baby by his birth mother, his defence lawyer has said.
George Martin Slijper, 26, had been found guilty by a jury in May 2024 of rape, gross indecency, assault by penetration, sexual communications with a child and meeting a child after sexual communications in relation to a 13-year-old victim whom he was accused of raping in a bathroom of a hotel.
In the second case, which involved two girls, ages 11 and 13, Slijper initially pleaded not guilty, but later, in April last year, he entered guilty pleas to rape, possessing indecent images of a child, assault by penetration and sexual communications with a child in relation to the 13-year-old. He also pleaded guilty to one count of sexual communications with a child in relation to the 11-year-old.
In each instance, the court heard, he had contacted the girls over social media, like Snapchat or Instagram.
On Friday, 16 Jan., Slijper, a British national, appeared via video link from Northward Prison, before Grand Court Justice Marlene Carter, who heard sentencing submissions from the Crown and defence.
‘Left for dead’ as a baby
His defence lawyer, Lee Halliday-Davis, said Slijper had the mental age of a 15-year-old, and she outlined his disturbing early childhood.
She said he was born in August 1999 to teenage drug-using parents. At the age of nine months, his birth mother abandoned him, along with his two older silbings, in an apartment.
“He had been left for dead on the floor of the apartment,” Halliday-Davis said. “He was under-nourished, neglected and also covered in lice.”
She told the court the three children had been taken into care, fostered and eventually adopted when Slijper was 18 months old.
The defence attorney noted that her client had begun to display mental problems from an early age and told the court he suffers from both child and adult ADHD, as well as ADD.
Psychiatric and psychological examinations have determined he “functions emotionally and personality-wise according to the age of a 15-year-old male”, said Halliday-Davis, who asked the judge to take this into account when determining an appropriate sentence.
At the age of 16, he was involved in a relationship with a 17-year-old girl, with whom he had a child, Halliday-Davis said. He later moved to Cayman with his parents, and continued a long-distance relationship with his child’s mother, but they broke up two months before he raped the 13-year-old victim.
Halliday-Davis said Slijper had been involved in Cayman with older women, including a 37-year-old to whom he got engaged, but she split up with him “because he did not behave like an adult”. Later, he was in a relationship with a 35-year-old woman, but that ended after he was arrested and remanded to prison.
The court heard that he seeks out relationships with older women and young girls because he does not have the emotional capacity to engage in “meaningful romantic relationships” with people his own age.
Groomed children over social media
Crown prosecutor Scott Wainwright gave some details of how Slijper had contacted and groomed the two girls in the second case.
He said Slijper, at the time 23 years old, had contacted the 13-year-old over Snapchat. She had told him how old she was, and he told her his age. Their messages took on a sexual nature and he eventually met her, picking her up in his car and having oral sex and intercourse with her a number of times, the court heard.
He had contacted the 11-year-old girl via Instagram. At first, she ignored him, but he persisted, and she responded, asking him to buy her a vape. “He asked if she was a virgin. He asked her if they could do sexual stuff. She said yes, if he would buy her a vape,” Wainwright said.
He said Slijper had asked if the girl and her cousin “could have a threesome”. Wainwright noted that no sexual activity took place between them.
As well as outlining recommended jail terms for the various offences as laid out in Cayman and British sentencing guidelines, Wainwright said the Crown was also asking for a Sexual Harm Prevention Order be put in place for 20 years following the completion of Slijper’s eventual sentence.
Carter read from a report by a social worker who worked with one of victims. That report noted that the girl suffered from severe anxiety attacks, had become easily distracted at school and experienced anxiety when interacting with older males.
No suitable secure mental health facility in Cayman
Halliday-Davis said the psychiatrist who evaluated Slijper had stated he would be willing to be his supervisory psychiatrist if her client were to be transferred to an institution in the United Kingdom.
With no suitable secure mental health facility in the Cayman Islands, it would likely require an order from Cayman Islands governor, under the Colonial Prisoners Reform Act of 1884, to facilitate a transfer to an overseas institution, the court heard. This act has been used in the past to transfer prisoners to jails in the UK, but usually for security-related reasons.
Halliday-Davis told the court, “What he needs … is treatment. His problems stem from his childhood, from the time he was a child, and until he has treatment, it is going to remain being a problem.”
She said the 1884 act was the only legislation she could find that may apply to transferring Slijper overseas to a medium-secure psychiatric unit, where he could receive appropriate treatment and participate in a rehabilitation programme to prevent recidivism.
She acknowledged that it was questionable whether a Cayman court could impose a sentence and send a person to the UK to serve that sentence.
Justice Carter responded that once she passes a sentence, it was likely going to be up to the defence to apply to the governor for a transfer to the UK. Halliday-Davis noted that the attorney general would first need to be approached in the process.
Carter asked Wainwright about the new Poinciana mental health facility in East End, but he confirmed that that was not a secure unit so would not be appropriate in this case.
The judge told counsel and Slijper that she would pass sentence on 6 Feb.
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I hope justice prevails in this case as this individual was in his right mind when he initiated and committed these offences with underage girls.
It will set a very bad precedent if he is in fact committed to a mental institution. He definitely needs to be incarcerated for a long time . The other 2 individuals who came before the courts most recently was given 12 and 15 year sentences respectively for raping/ dealing with underage girls .
Govt just published that sex crimes involving pre- teenage / teenagers have risen tremendously. Examples need to be set to deal with these types of crimes .
“Examples need to be set?”
The stated fourfold purpose of a prison sentence is to punish, to deter others, to protect society and to rehabilitate.
Rehab’ cannot be achieved on the Islands so he must go somewhere else.
The trial cout judge is going to sentence him to something near the maximum as this is not a first offence and the victims were substantially harmed.
But it is very questionable if any of the four basic reasons for imprisonment on our facilities is going to be achieved and it is conceded by the Crown rehabilitation is impossible which means society is not being protected in the long term and no example to discourage others from the same offence was every going to happen as the behaviour shows abnormal pathology.
So that just leaves punishment. The story doesn’t set out what Defence had to say on the effectiveness of punishment so we are left to surmise the thought behind long term mental health elsewhere “at the pleasure of the Crown.”
Any victim of any crime seeks revenge. We are hardwired to strike back. Our society has decided personal vendetta justice should be replaced by societal punishment to be decided by a judge and administered by the state.
The real question is not does this impact the perpetrator, of course it does, but does it satiate the community’s desire for revenge; or as you put it, the setting of an example?
Well, modern mental health institutions are nothing like “One flew over the cuckoos nest”. And Nurse Rackett’s don’t exist today leave alone cal the shots, so quite possibly not.
But what’s a lifetime of solitary going to achieve other than a monumental taxpayer custodian bill? Because solitary it will be if the prison system hopes to keep him alive.
We know prison won’t make him any better and if decades of solitary drive him to the point where the rule in the 1843 M’naghten insanity case will actually apply then, much as the community might want revenge, cruel and unusual punishment inflicted by the government of our community is unlikely make any of us feel any better about this entire business or ourselves.
But it does demonstrate a point made in these cols many times before, an ounce of prevention of prevention is worth pounds of cure. And job one of society is to protect its children.