IN THE SUPREME COURT
OF THE REPUBLIC OF VANUATU
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(Criminal Jurisdiction)
Criminal Case No.13 of 2001
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PUBLIC PROSECUTOR
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–v-
Mr. Terry Gardner for the
Prosecution
Mr. Stephen Joel for the
defendant
SENTENCE
The defendant Tarip Tatangis
was charged under Section 98 (1) of the Penal enal Code that is for Indecent
Assault, for
that on the 21st of April 2001 at Wong Garage,
Tebakor, Port Vila, he indecently assaulted Vanessa Kalo and that was by
pushing his finger
inside Vanessa Kalo’s vagina and at that time Vanessa
Kalo was only 11 years old. The charge was put to the defendant and he
admitted and the Court enters a plea of guilty against him.
The summary facts of the case
are as follows:-
On hearing Terry Gardner for the Public Prosecutor the matter was quite serious and sucd such cases attract
custodial sentence.
Further, the offence was quite serious and a deterrent
penalty is required to be imposed by this Court as this Court in the
past
has imposed straight sentence for this type of offences. In addition there
were no prior conviction against the
defendant for this type of offence.
Joel Stephen for the defendant
advances that the defends 47 years old, married witd with 7 children, one
works at the
Drug Store, the other one at Le Meridien, one unemployed, two
in high schools, and the other children are in primary schools.
The
defendant by profession he is a carpenter and also knows mechanical work,
and employed with Wong Garage at Tebakor.
The defendant came to Vila for
employment purposes and mainly for school fees for his children and also to
look after
his family.
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The offence that the defendant
is charged under carries a maximum penalty of 10 ye10 years in jail and that
shows that
the offence is a serious offence of which straight sentence must
be imposed as the penalty required under the law. The defendant
is a matured
person, with 47 years of age, has a wife and has seven children, and knew
exactly what he was doing. He
took advantage of the child immature thinking
towards what sex is all about. The defendant has touched her private part,
not only that, but also ruptured part of her vagina which means that he did
pushed his finger into her vagina. It is quite
very very serious on medical
grounds that if the finger has done more damage than what it did to her at
that time it
could caused her death, because of her age at that time.
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Now the question your wife and
your chilwill be asking: “Why didy did our daddy did this to this child?
You will also have a bad image in your family and your relatives which in
itself is shameful thing to do as you already
have a wife and you have
children. Not only that, but also what you have done to the child also
affected her parents
and even her brothers and sisters and their relatives.
For these reasons I will now impose a sentence of twenty four months
as the
appropriate penalty for you to serve as a punishment. Therefore, you are now
convicted and sentence to imprisonment
for a period of twenty four months.
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Dated at Port Vila, this 10th
day of May, 2001.
R. MARUM MBE
JUDGE.
