A MAN who sexually abused a two-year-old girl at a settlement in Honiara in March will be sentenced in the Honiara Magistrates’ Court on June 27.
This was after mitigation and sentencing submissions were made on Friday.
Principal Magistrate Augustine Aulanga has other cases to tend to and therefore had the matter adjourn for sentencing.
During the mitigation yesterday, the man in his 40s told the court that he was too drunk and was also given marijuana to smoke which led him to commit the offence.
“I drank beer and the boys whom we were drinking together gave me marijuana,” he claimed.
“I did not realised it was marijuana I was smoking at that time.”
When asked if he were to be sent to prison and released, will he smoke marijuana again, the father of four replied, ‘no, I don’t smoke marijuana it was those boys who gave me the marijuana that made me like that.’
When the court asked him again if he was to be sent to prison and released will he ever commit the same offence again, the accused said no because what he did was not good.
He told the court that he was sorry for what he did and that his properties were burnt after police arrested him because of the crime.
The court heard the accused, who was a relative, was living with the victim’s family at a settlement in Honiara when the incident occurred.
The accused told the court that while he was in custody when the victim’s family went to his brother and collected $500.
The prosecution sought a deterrence sentence to deter others in the community from committing such offence and to deter the accused as well.
The accused represented himself while public prosecutor Freliz Fakarii prosecuted in the case.
By ASSUMPTA BUCHANAN
