The negative effects of an indecent sexual act that 46-year-old Joseph Augustin Cummings performed on a then seven-year-old girl will last her a lifetime, a judge said yesterday.
In fact, said Justice Michelle Weekes, it was difficult not to impose the full the five-year maximum sentence stipulated by law.
In the end, the illegal Vincentian was jailed for four years, but because he had been on remand for 781 days, he will spend only the remaining one year, 315 days at HMP Dodds. When he has finished his jail time, he will be deported from Barbados.
Cummings was back in the No. 2 Supreme Court yesterday for sentencing after he pleaded guilty, at an earlier Session of the Continuous Sittings, to indecently assaulting the girl on September 1, 2015.
“Despite the mitigation,” Justice Weekes told the offender, “I must admit because of the egregious nature of the offence, I am hard-pressed to give you any discount.
“An offence such as this strikes at the core of our society and the effect on the child cannot be qualified. Nothing will erase this from her memory and it will last a lifetime,” the judge said, adding she considered that only a custodial sentence would be adequate to protect society from him.
The judge further told Cummings she had considered the aggravating factors, which included that he was known to, and trusted by the girl’s family; that she was a very young girl who said September was not the first time such an assault had happened; that the act was a serious breach of trust and that it had had a negative impact on the child.
Justice Weekes added the only mitigating factors were Cummings’ guilty plea and his stated remorse.
Cummings was represented by Arthur Holder, while Crown Counsel Oliver Thomas prosecuted the matter.
The court had heard that the child visited her grandmother’s house that day. Cummings was a tenant there. The child was in the laundry room, standing by a window when Cummings lifted her through the window and into his apartment.
He then undressed her and indecently assaulted her. When he heard her grandmother calling her, he dressed her and sent her back into the laundry room.
But the girl told her grandmother what had happened, saying she knew what had been done to her was wrong because her mother had warned her about such things.
The child further said it was not the first time Cummings had committed such an act, even though she could not remember the date of the last one.
When Cummings was interviewed by police, he said he was “playing” with the girl and “it get out of control”. He also told police the girl and he were “making love like normal for half-hour”.
A pre-sentencing report spoke of Cummings’ drinking problem and said as a result of the act, the girl sometimes became withdrawn.