The man who confessed to raping a then 14-year-old girl, getting her pregnant and then giving her pills which terminated the pregnancy, was given a starting sentence of ten years when he appeared in the No. 4A Supreme Court yesterday.
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“Your actions towards the complainant were abhorrent and deserve the strongest condemnation,” Justice Wanda Blair told Jermaine Christopher Ellis yesterday, as she added he was lucky not to be facing another charge.
“It is only in exceptional circumstances where a custodial sentence is not imposed,” the judge added.
Ellis, of Hindsbury Road, St Michael, had pleaded guilty, at an earlier Sessions of the Continuous Sittings, to having sexual intercourse with a girl who had attained the age of 14, but not 16, between October 1 and 31, 2017.
He was represented by Senior Counsel Andrew Pilgrim, while Principal State Counsel Joyann Catwell and State Counsel Eleazar Williams appeared for the prosecution.
The judge said she had considered his pre-sentencing report, which had deemed him as posing a low risk of reoffending, and the facts of the matter.
She said she had formed the opinion that the offence was so serious that a custodial sentence should be imposed.
The judge told Ellis she had determined that ten years was an appropriate starting point for his offence. She then deducted one year for the mitigating features after considering his guilty plea and his apology. The court also deducted one third for his guilty plea and six months for the delay in the matter.
The judge said she had rounded off Ellis’ time on remand to seven months and had deducted that as well.
In the end, Justice Blair ordered him to serve the remaining four years and seven months for the offence.
The court had heard the girl was a fourth form student who had known Ellis for more than three years. They became friendly and he would send casual Facebook messages. She responded to some of them.
One day in 2017, she was running late and he offered to drop her and some relatives to school. When the others got out, Ellis told her to get in the front seat. She only complied after Ellis insisted he would not drive any further unless she did.
He struck up a conversation, but the girl did not respond. He then asked her whether she wanted to see his penis. She declined but he took it out and pulled her head toward it. He then told her she was “moving like a little girl” and he was taking her to school before she got him “in trouble”.
The girl threatened to tell her mother and Ellis offered her $300 to say nothing. She got out the vehicle and he later sent her messages offering her money, which she refused.
In October, she was again running late for school when Ellis offered her a ride.
This time he did not allow her to get out the vehicle. Instead, he parked his car outside a house, took her bag and went inside. She remained in the car and begged him to return her bag, but he refused. She eventually went into the house, where he told her to “stop acting freaky” because they had come there to “do something”.
The girl insisted she had not. Ellis lifted her into the front bedroom, threw her on the bed and raped her.
When he went to bathe, she left and took public transportation to school.
She subsequently found out she was pregnant and after messaging Ellis, he brought her tablets, which she took, but later started bleeding and having abdominal cramps. The pregnancy was terminated and the girl was hospitalised for two weeks. Her mother reported the matter to police.
When lawmen questioned Ellis, he said: “We had sex, but I never raped her.” (HLE)