A 44-year-old St Catherine-based taxi driver who pleaded guilty to routinely raping and trafficking his underage daughter and stepdaughter over several years will spend more than three decades behind bars for those crimes.

He was also slapped with a similar sentence for raping another child, his next-door neighbour, around the same period of time. The sentences for the crimes against all three girls amount to just over 100 years. However, the sentences will run concurrently, making it so that he will serve the longest of the lot, which is 33 years and eight months behind bars, before he can apply for parole.

The man, who was sentenced by Supreme Court judge Justice Bertram Morrison on Tuesday in the Home Circuit Court, had been charged for rape, sex with a person under 16, incest, causing the involvement of a child in pornography and producing child pornography, and trafficking in persons on a 15-count indictment where his daughter and step-daughter were concerned.

He pleaded guilty on February 14 this year to those charges, but maintained that he was innocent of the charges brought by his neighbour.

According to the allegations, which were read out in court for the first time on Tuesday — since the convicted man had avoided a trial by virtue of his guilty pleas — he transported the girls to a friend who would forcibly have intercourse with them while he, the father, watched. That individual, was apparently expected to help pay the father’s legal fees in relation to the under-aged neighbour he had raped.

The taxi driver’s crimes came to light after the mother of his daughter saw a video he had sent to the child’s phone where he was having intercourse with their child. When the mother reported the matter to the police it was discovered that he had also been intimate with his stepdaughter, who said the man she called “daddy” had started having intercourse with her when she was in grade 5, beginning sometime between 2018 and 2019.

According to the evidence of his daughter, her father began having intercourse with her after her 12th birthday. She said on the first occasion when he approached her she told him it was wrong, but he insisted it was “okay” as they were related and forcibly had sex with her.

On other occasions she said the man she called father invited his friend to the house to have intercourse with her, in his bedroom in one instance. She said after a marathon incident in which both the friend and her father took turns sexually molesting her, he would have sex with her every two nights or so and on one occasion gave her $1,500 to purchase a chicken meal from money he said his friend sent for her.

The girls had been living with the man when the abuse took place, according to court documents.

During his arrest, the police team said upon reaching the vicinity of Flat Bridge, the then accused man reached from the back seat of the motor vehicle where he was seated, grabbed the steering wheel and attempted to turn the vehicle into the river, declaring “A dead man want fi dead, unnuh jus’ kill mi and done, or mi a go kill off everybody tonight. If unnuh nuh kill mi tonight, mi a go kill unnuh.”

Upon being taken from the vehicle he tried to kick one of the cops into the river, court documents obtained by the Observer showed.

While in the custody of the police, upon being told of the allegations against him and being cautioned, the taxi driver claimed that he had taken his stepdaughter’s virginity but said he was not sure he was the one who took his daughter’s innocence. He admitted that on several occasions he would have intercourse with the girls and would perform oral sex on them.

He claimed they would do the same to him and that he would videotape and share those incidents with them. He said that on several occasions he took the young girls to his friend for him to also abuse them sexually.

According to the allegations, he went as far as impersonating his daughter by using her phone to text schoolboys, inviting them to the house to engage in sex acts with her and her stepsister on account that the acts would be videotaped and sent to him. If this was not done, he would be upset. However, when the request was carried out he would collect money from the boys and the adult friend when he was involved.

The Observer was told that there was “shocked silence in the courtroom when the facts were read out” on Tuesday.

Both girls, in “chilling” victim impact statements, described the effect the years of abuse had on them and the relief felt when the actions of their supposed guardian were uncovered.

The taxi operator, who pleaded guilty to all counts, was sentenced to 33 years and eight months on the charges of rape, grievous sexual assault, and sex with a person under 16; 15 years on the trafficking counts; 10 years for causing the involvement of a child in pornography and producing child pornography; 10 years on the incest counts; and three years on the assault occasioning bodily harm counts. Those sentences, which amount to just over 70 years, will run concurrently.

A psychiatric evaluation ordered for the offending male said he was mentally stable.

The prosecution was led by Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Malike Kellier and the defence by attorneys Denise Hinson and Stefan Matthews.

The matter was investigated by Detective Sergeant Tracey Cooper-Prince, Corporal Omar Thomas, and Corporal Nadia Edwards of the Centre for Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse.