BY JENNIFER KUSAPA
THE court has sentenced a man to two years and eight months for having sexual intercourse with his own daughter.
This is in relation to incidents in 2004 at Temotu province where the accused was alleged to have sexual intercourse with his daughter on unknown dates between July and November.
Prosecution said that the accused on five occasions had committed the offence to his own daughter.
Principal Magistrate Tearo Beneteti in sentencing the accused said after considering all the aggravating and mitigating features, a custodial sentence is proper as always said by the courts.
“I agree and it is binding on me to consider the same,” Ms Beneteti said.
She said such offending must be condemned as fathers blessed with having children should be responsible in carrying out their fatherly role with love, care and protection.
“They are the head of the family and to fall short in such manner as seen in this case is nothing more than being inhumane and selfish.
“To lash out on daughters the way the defendant had done using force and having a knife with him for the three counts and doing it continuously is just outrageous such fathers must be taken out from the society so they can spend time think in custody over all that they have done to come to understand the detriment effects on the victim of their crime,” Beneteti said.
“He has gravely breached the trust that the victim has on him as the father and that is not taken lightly by this court.
“This offence in my view calls for strong deterrence message and I must therefore have this on my mind as I deliberate over them. It also calls for retribution to a certain extent.”
She said this is a serious type of offending.
“They were pre-planned as well as the defendant takes the lead in taking the victim to the locations of where the offending took place.
“This is horrendous,” Beneteti added.
Therefore she imposed a following sentence for count one, two, three and four two years and six months for each count while count five two years and eight months. All sentences will be served concurrently to count five.
