A 27-year-old man has been sentenced to 12 years in prison with an eight-year non-parole period after being found guilty of repeatedly raping his 13-year-old nephew and using a secretly recorded nude video to silence the boy.
The sentence was handed down On November 28 in the High Court in Lautoka by Justice Aruna Aluthge.
Between September 2020 and May 2021, the offender, then aged 22, subjected his nephew – who had moved into the family home in Sigatoka to attend school – to rape two to three times a week.
The court heard that the offender filmed the child naked, then threatened to circulate the video and kill the boy if he told anyone.
The judge described the offending as “calculated, cruel and prolonged exploitation of a vulnerable child who looked to the offender as an uncle and protector”.
The judge stressed that child rape is “second only to murder in terms of gravity” and that the courts must send an unequivocal message of deterrence, particularly when children are abused in the very places they should feel safest.
“The prevalence of sexual offences against children in this country demands that the courts respond with sentences that both punish the offender and protect other children by denunciation and deterrence,” the judge said.
