Taxi-driver jailed 47 years for incest

THE first time taxi-driver Gregory Gordon held down his nine-year-old daughter and forcibly had sex with her, he described the child as a “whore... just like your mother.” Yesterday, Gordon was jailed for a total of 47 years with hard labour by a San Fernando Judge who described the sex attacks on the child as, “barbaric and an act of boundless contempt for a child.” Gordon, 42, was brought before a nine-member mixed jury in the San Fernando Criminal Assizes on a seven-count indictment, but on Tuesday, trial judge Justice Melville Baird directed the jury to return not-guilty verdicts on four of the charges, while Gordon was subsequently found guilty on the remaining three charges which were for incest.

At yesterday’s sentencing, Justice Baird imposed jail terms of 17 years for one charge and 15 years each for the other two charges. However, Gordon will serve only 17 years behind bars since the sentences were ordered to run concurrently. Justice Baird delivered a sound criticism against persons who commit such crimes saying, “a father who has sexual intercourse with his daughter must have negative feelings towards the child. Incest is the negation of fatherly love. Incest and paternal affection are incompatible. They are both mutually exclusive.” During the prosecution’s evidence, led by assistant Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard, the court heard, after committing the first act of sexual intercourse, Gordon told the victim, “go upstairs, you little whore. You just like your mother.”

“What made this child a whore?” Justice Baird asked before handing down sentence yesterday.  The acts were committed after the girl’s mother migrated to the United States and the child went to live with her grandparents. The sexual abuse began in November 1993, when Gordon would pick her up from primary school and take her to his home in Embacadere. “In this case, the child is an object of the father’s lust, not love. He showed boundless contempt for the child by forcing himself on her and telling her she was a whore,” Justice Baird stated.  The abuse continued for seven years, before the matter was reported to the police. The girl’s mother returned from the US on May 22, 2000, and got wind of the incest from the victim.

The next day, mother and daughter went to the San Fernando Police Station and a report was made. WPC McDowell investigated and Gordon was arrested.  After 20 hearings during the preliminary inquiry at San Fernando Magistrates’ court, Gordon was committed to stand trial. Last week, the matter was brought to trial before Justice Baird in the First Criminal Assizes where a nine-member jury heard testimony from the victim who is now a teenager. The victim related to the court the acts of abuse against her over a seven-year-period, beginning when she was nine-years-old. Gordon told the court the case against him was fabricated.