Republic v Ebara [2003] KIHC 82; Criminal Case 27 of 2002 (4 July 2003)

IN THE HIGH COURT OF KIRIBATI
CRIMINAL JURISDICTION
HELD AT BETIO
REPUBLIC OF KIRIBATI

Criminal Case No. 27 of 2002

THE REPUBLIC

vs

KARAMERU EBARA

For the Republic: Ms Pauline Beiatau
For the Accused: Ms Taoing Taoaba

Date of Hearing: 1 July 2003

SENTENCE

Karameru Ebara: you have pleaded guilty to two charges of indecent assault in April 2002. The victim on each occasion was your 18 year old niece, the daughter of your brother. You were 29. You were living with your 80 year old mother on Tamana. Your niece came to live in the same house. On the 1^st October about seven o'clock at night you hit the young woman and took her into the bush. You made her lie on her back and you licked her vagina for several minutes. Your mother knew what you had done and scolded you: you promised not to do it again.

But you did. At the end of the month, about the same time, seven o'clock, you hit your niece again. Later in the evening when you and she were outside the house you lifted up her dress and tore off her shorts. You made her sit on your lap and put your fingers more than once into her vagina.

On neither occasion did the victim consent to what you did.

You are now 30. You have not married. You have lived a subsistence lifestyle. Ms Taoaba said you were trying to tame your niece. If so it was a wrong way to go about it. In your favour is that you have no previous convictions, admitted to the police what you had done when they questioned you and you have pleaded guilty. I take all that into account.

These were serious indecent assaults. What you did was dreadfully wrong: made worse by doing it twice and after you had promised your mother when she found out about the first time, that you would not do it again. For that reason and because several weeks passed between the first assault and the second I cannot regard it as one course of conduct.

On the first count you will be imprisoned for one year and six months: on the second count for two years. The sentences are to be served cumulatively which means a total imprisonment of 3½ years. The term will run from 29 May when you went into custody.

Dated the 4^th day of July 2003

THE HON ROBIN MILLHOUSE QC
CHIEF JUSTICE