DIRECTOR of Public Prosecutions Kent Pantry has recommended that the seven-year sentence currently served by adults who sexually assault children under 14 years of age be increased.

Speaking during a meeting of the joint select committee of parliament that is considering the Incest (Punishment) Act and the Offences Against the Person Act Wednesday, the DPP said he had on several occasions grieved over the inadequate length of the sentence.

“I did bemoan the fact. and wondered about the rationale for that because the same activity with an adult woman the maximum is life imprisonment, I didn’t believe that seven years should remain,” the DPP said, pointing out that the “sentence should be increased” and a similar penalty applied for an attempt to have sexual intercourse with persons in the age group.

Committee member Senator Donna Scott-Mottley agreed.

“I am one of those persons who has never been able to understand as a criminal practitioner why you have this age difference and I really think we should look very closely at whether or not we need to retain it,” the attorney said.

“What I would like to see is that we look at adult to child and child to child in different ways so we can create some kind of division where we can extend sympathy to two young people who might be experimenting or unaware of the criminal consequences of their act as opposed to an adult who should know better and who is exploiting a child, and that is where I think the sentencing regime needs to be closely examined,” she added.

Dr Aileen Boxhill, the director of legal reform in the Ministry of National Security, explained that the reason for the division in age was the sentencing regime.

“When you look at it, the only reason would be the sentencing. It is the sentence that is different, apart from the provision dealing with the special defence ‘the young man’s defence’,” she emphasised.

In noting that the ‘pattern’ was one that was observed in similar legislation studied by the technical team, Boxhill said the alternative where the offence was not defined was to have it reflected in the sentencing.

“This is a pattern that obtains in all the legislation we have looked at and where you don’t have a differently defined offence it is reflected in the sentencing and that’s another approach that can be taken,” she explained.

Attorney General AJ Nicholson, in noting that the way to deal with the matter was “in the sentencing” applied, said the committee had in fact settled on that approach and that the provision “would be retained”.

Last week committee members recommended that several of the penalties under the Offences Against the Person Act be reviewed amid concerns over the length of current sentences under some sections.

One major change to the Act will see the inclusion of provisions to make the offence of rape gender-neutral, meaning it could be committed by a male or female against both male and female. Previous proposals to provide a statutory definition of rape and sexual intercourse which would extend ‘rape’ beyond vaginal penetration by a penis, has since been thrown out by the committee. Instead, it was agreed that the traditional understanding of rape would be kept and have other sexual acts recognised under other offences elsewhere in the provision and under a new Sexual Offences Act.