State v Kalou [2012] FJHC 999; HAC57.2011 (29 March 2012)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF FIJI
AT LABASA
CRIMNAL JURISDICTION

Criminal Case No. HAC 57 of 2011

STATE

V

PETERO KALOU

Counsel : Mr. M. Mataiva for the State
Accused in person

Date of Hearing : 26, 27, 28 March 2012
Date of Summing Up 28 March 2012
Date of Judgment : 28 March 2012
Date of Sentence : 29 March 2012

SENTENCE

1. The accused has been found guilty in this Court, after trial, of fourteen counts of rape; the victim being his daughter aged 17 at the time and the convictions spanning the period from December 2010 until the end of October 2011.
   
2. It is hard for any right thinking person to imagine how first such abominable crimes could come to be perpetrated against a child, still at school; and secondly what affect such sexual abuse will have on this young lady's own development to sexual maturity. She was robbed of her youth and of a father at the same time. The accused grossly abused any trust she might have placed in him and he grossly abused any parental right to rear and nuture his daughter or any of his children for that matter. His behaviour was so serious and so threatening that the girl lived in fear of him and his approaches to her at her boarding school alarmed the teachers so much that they sought guidance from the Police and from the Ministry of Education, all without knowing the true cause of the threat from the accused.
   
3. For some years now the Courts have been handing down heavy sentences for rape of children and particularly for incestuous rapes amounting to domestic violence. These heinous acts of violence are all too common in our society and the harm they do both to harmonious family life and to the development of our youth must attract due opprobrium of the sentencing Court.
   
4. The accused is 45 years old and works as a caretaker of property at Yaukolo. He has been married twice and has five children, including the victim of these 14 rapes, living with him at Waivunia Village, Savusavu.
   
5. In the case of Drotini (AAU0001.2005) the Court of Appeal set the starting point for sentence of the rape of a child to be ten years imprisonment and in Felix Ram ( HAC 033 of 2010L) this Court handed down a sentence of eleven years after a plea of guilty for the rape of a daughter. In Navauniami Koroi (HAA 0050.2002), Shameem J. found that it was a serious aggravating factor that the rape victim was the convict's daughter and added four years to the sentence to reflect that and again Shameem J. In Poese (HAA0091J.2004S) in dealing with an accused convicted of raping his 17 year old daughter, and similarly to this case showing a dagger at the time), found that a term of 15 years imprisonment was appropriate .
   
6. In this case I take a starting point of twelve years imprisonment for each count of rape. This high starting point reflects the vulnerability of the young victim as well as the use of a knife and threats to instill fear in her, both to do the act and not to report it. I increase this starting point by three years for the victim being the convict's daughter and the inherent breach of trust. For this horrific ordeal that she was subjected to, in that she was raped on multiple occasions over a period of almost one year I add a further two years to the term. There is no meaningful mitigation and I noted that the accused displayed a distinct lack of remorse throughout his trial.
   
7. The accused will serve a term of imprisonment of seventeen years for each of the fourteen convictions for rape. These terms will be served concurrently with each other and he will serve a minimum term of fourteen years before he is eligible for parole.
   

   Paul K. Madigan
   Judge

At Labasa
29 March, 2012.