A Grand Court judge sentenced Samir Nepali to two years and eight months in prison for indecently assaulting a female teenage intern at a construction site last year.
Nepali, 31, earlier pleaded guilty on the morning his trial was scheduled to begin, having initially denied molesting the 18-year-old victim after cornering her in a unit inside the site in January 2025.
The girl had been an intern with a local construction company, where her job involved inspecting aspects of the ongoing building work. Nepali worked as an electrician contracted to work at the site.
Justice Emma Peters, giving details of the offence during a sentencing hearing of the Nepalese national on Tuesday, 9 June, said that, at around 10:30am, the teen had been checking the laundry area of a unit in which Nepali was doing electrical work on a panel box. They began a conversation during which Nepali told the girl she was “hot”.
He approached her and, as the victim described it, “braced” himself against her. She stepped back and as she began to walk away, he grabbed her right hand and asked where she was going.
“She told you to let go, but you continued to hold her and asked why she was standing so far away from you,” Peters told Nepali as he sat in the dock beside an interpreter. He asked the girl if she liked him and “she was clear – she said she did not”, the judge said.
At that point, Peters said, hearing noises from downstairs, Nepali let the girl go, but kicked the door closed. “You told her that no one was coming because there was no one else working on that floor,” the judge told the defendant. He then asked her if she liked sex, and as she tried to pull away from him, he grabbed her, touched her breasts and kissed her on the cheek, the court heard.
When they heard another noise from downstairs, Nepali released the teenager, and she managed to open the door and get out. “She left, you pursued her, and put your hand around her, ” the judge said. “She told you to let go; you continued to pursue her.”
The girl struggled free and reported to a co-worker what had happened. Police were called, and Nepali initially denied indecently touching her, only admitting to grabbing her wrist and hugging her, and accidentally touching her breast. He later accepted the prosecution’s contention that he had deliberately indecently touched the victim.
In her victim impact statement, the teenager said she had ongoing anxiety and felt unsafe in work environments. “While she no longer works in the same capacity, she indicated that the incident has contributed to continued fear and discomfort whilst at work, and she expressed she may benefit from trauma therapy,” the judge said.
Considering the mitigating factors in the case, Peters noted Nepali’s guilty plea, and that he has no previous convictions and, prior to this offence, had been of good character. He supports his wife and 17-month-old child in Nepal, she said.
But, she also considered that the victim had been “isolated, cornered, kissed, touched and grabbed against her will”, and had been assessed “as having experienced a significant psychological impact”.
She told Nepali, “Every person has a right to feel safe in their workplace. Every woman has a right to physical and sexual autonomy over her own body. A young woman of 18, embarking on her career as an intern on a construction site has the absolute right to feel she will be physically and sexually respected by her colleagues.
“It is rare enough for women to enter into the construction industry. They must feel able and safe to do so, and if a young woman of 18 on an internship is treated in this way by their older male colleagues on site, it is hardly surprising that women are put off from being involved in such an industry. And that’s an important consideration when it comes to the issue of deterrence, especially on an island such as Grand Cayman where the construction industry is so significant.”
Giving him a 10% discount for his guilty plea, the judge sentenced Nepali to two years and eight months in prison, and said she anticipated that, at the end of his sentence, he would be deported back to Nepal.
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