A 26-year-old Salisbury man has been slapped with a prison sentence of 11 years 9 months and 20 days, following his conviction of buggery of a minor boy.
Shamiguel James, who was found guilty on June 22, 2022, by a jury, for buggery of a minor boy was sentenced to 11 years 9 months and 20 days by former resident high court judge in Dominica, Madame Justice Wynante Adrien-Roberts on January 12, 2023.
The brief facts of the case
On July 24, 2016, at Salisbury, James who was 19 years old at the time had sexual intercourse per anus with a then 12-year-old boy.
According to the evidence, at about 3:00 PM, on the date, the victim was on the Salisbury playing field playing football with his friends when the ball was kicked into the bushes at the edge of the field.
The child went to retrieve it and whilst doing so, his friends left the field for water during his search for the ball, he saw James who asked him to pull down his pants, and he then began having anal sex with the 12-year-old boy.
The evidence from the court further stated, after the incident, blood was seen on the victim’s pants and his anus had a lesion at six o’clock which the medical doctor said would have been caused by a blunt object, possibly an erect penis.
Sentencing
At the court hearing, Justice Adrien-Roberts told the court, pursuant to legislative provisions, the defendant is liable to a minimum custodial sentence of 16 years, eight months, and a maximum of 25 years.
In constructing her sentence, the judge explained she must embark on a computation exercise applying the procedures proposed in the sentencing guidelines for sexual offenses issued in November 2021. She stated that in the first stage, “the court is to consider the evidence of the consequence of harm caused by the offense”.
The virtual complainant she said, “suffered both physical and psychological harm as in his evidence.” “The victim stated that the sexual act committed against him was painful which left him feeling bad and shameful,” she stated.
“After the sexual abuse, he said he was in shock and disclosed to a Welfare Officer that since the incident, he has been severely bullied at school, by family members and members of his community. He has lost trust in people and plans to relocate from his community,” the Judge said.
She said that the virtual complainants said that “his social life has been enormously affected, as he does not feel comfortable socializing, and it is difficult for females to want a relationship with him even in adulthood.”
“The attack he said has troubled his mind and today he is angry and believes he can bring harm to James if he could do so,” she remarked.
According to Justice Adrien-Roberts, the victim’s mother in her interview with the Welfare Officer states that “her son did not excel in school because he was constantly being bullied and was not allowed to go anywhere except for the playing field.”
“The court categorized the harm suffered by the defendant as falling within category two “high signifying serious psychological and physical harm,” she said.
“The second stage of step one was to consider the seriousness of the offense by assessing the culpability of the offender which the judge said fell within level A, high. In this regard, the court, therefore, established a starting point of 10 years, with a range between six years and 14 years, adjusted for the aggravating and mitigating factors of the offense,” she said.
The court, she said, did not identify any aggravating factors of the offense. However, one mitigating factor, which the court considered pertinent was that no violence was used.
“For this reason, the sentence was adjusted downwards and therefore stood at nine years and six months…the second step of the process requires the court to adjust the figure for the aggravating and mitigating factors affecting the offender,” she said.
The aggravating factors, she said, pointed out that the defendant continues to proclaim his innocence and has “not expressed any remorse for his actions.”
“He appears to be unperturbed by the damage that he has caused to the life of the virtual complainant and the psychological harm that will remain with the victim until his memory serves him,” the Judge stated.
She added, that James’s conviction sheet from the Commonwealth of Dominica Police Force shows one relevant conviction in another offense.
“For these aggravating factors, the sentence was adjusted upwards by three years. The sentence stood at 12 years and six months.”
Steps three and four she said required the court to adjust the figure for a guilty plea and assess the totality of sentencing for more than one offense. However, this was not applicable in this case.
At step five she said, the figure was adjusted to give credit for time spent on remand for the offense and the defendant who was remanded into custody for 246 days was given full credit which reduced his sentence to 11 years, nine months 20 days.
James was represented by the Legal AID Clinic while the prosecution’s case was led by State attorney Daina Matthew assisted by Marie Louise Pierre-Louis.