A 37-year-old man who told his niece, aged 12 at the time, that he ‘had wanted to do that to her long ago’ as he raped her in a secluded spot in Suva two years ago, has been jailed for more than 10 years.
Court documents showed that the child who ‘is from a broken family’ stayed with the man for some time, before the incident, because she had nowhere else to go after her parents separated. During her stay, he was ‘harsh towards her’, forcing her to return to her mother’s place.
On the day of the incident early October 2018, the man waited at the Suva Bus Stand to meet her as she returned from school. He tricked her into accompanying her under the pretence that she picks herbal medicine for her grandmother. At Wairua Road, off Princess Road, about a 10-minute drive from Fiji’s capital city, Suva, he ‘went down one hill’ and committed the offence.
In sentencing, the man, Suva high court Judge Justice Aruna Aluthge said he breached her trust and took advantage of her ‘helpless situation’. The court also established elements of pre-planning by the man based on his utterances as he raped her.
Charged and convicted of two counts of rape and one count of resisting arrest, the man was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment and will not be considered for parole until he has served 10 years.
