JFJ upset over suspended sentence given to sex offender
MONTEGO BAY, St James – Human rights watchdog Jamaicans for Justice (JFJ) on Saturday registered its disgust over the recent suspended sentence handed down by Justice Marjorie Cole-Smith in the case of convicted sex offender Floyd Wright.
Wright, 32, a producer at KLAS Sports Radio, received a suspended sentence on March 30 after he was convicted on two counts of sexually assaulting a teenage girl, starting when she was 13 years old.
In delivering her verdict, Justice Cole-Smith said she had taken into consideration the good character witnesses and the pleadings of both the child and her mother that the accused not be sentenced.
But on Saturday, executive director of JFJ, Dr Carolyn Gomes, said the ruling was unbelievable and shocking and made a mockery of the justice system against the background of recent reports of increasing sexual assaults against children and the recent passing of the Child Care and Protection Act.
“It is unbelievable and shocking,” Gomes said. “The punishment should fit the crime. It speaks to the inequities in the justice system.”
She said the group, which had earlier released a statement calling the ruling “incomprehensible”, had no ground on which to act as they had not been approached with requests to probe the ruling. She added, however, that they had to express their disgust as a body committed to watch over the country’s system of justice.
In its written statement, JFJ had argued that a suspended sentence for such an abhorrent crime suggested that sexual assault of children was socially sanctioned in Jamaica.
The group also questioned the wisdom of Justice Cole-Smith in basing her ruling on the plea from the victim who had previously been threatened by the accused and the sentiments of character witnesses.
Furthermore, JFJ said it found that the ruling revealed an inequitable and inconsistent functioning of the justice system, pointing to a similar case which was heard on April 5, 2007 by Supreme Court Judge Gloria Smith which resulted in a four-year jail sentence for 24-year-old Rayon Mason.
Mason reportedly pleaded guilty to three counts of carnal abuse of a 14-year-old girl, whom he impregnated. A social enquiry report also spoke highly of him, and he requested a non-custodial sentence so that he could be a good father to the child. In this case, Justice Gloria Smith ruled said she had no choice but to send Mason to prison to send a strong message to other like-minded men to leave little girls alone.