Kidnapper rapist jailed for 23 years

STRESSING that children must be brought up in an environment free of defilement, High Court judge Malcolm Holdip yesterday jailed kick-boxing trainer Timidass Boodram to a total of 23 years for kidnapping and having sex with an eight-year-old girl. The ordeal must have left the child in embarrassment and fright, the judge told Boodram, 44. The incident occurred on August 15, 1998, and for kidnapping the girl in his car, Holdip sentenced Boodram to five years hard labour. For having sex with a girl under the age of 14, Boodram was sentenced for 18 years. The judge ordered both sentences to run concurrently, and Boodram will therefore serve 18 years.

A jury in the San Fernando High Court found Boodram guilty on Wednesday of kidnapping the child, then taking her to a canefield road where he had sex with her in his car. In passing sentence, Holdip told Boodram: “Non-consensual intercourse is an extreme act of violence which society takes very seriously. Tampering with children in their tender years is a matter of grave concern to society. Children of tender years are entitled to be free of defilement.” State attorney Marlon Sambucharan prosecuted. The girl testified in the Second Assize Court that she was standing on the road when Boodram pulled her into his car. The girl told the jury how Boodram, threatening her with a bottle, ordered her into his car then drove to a canefield road.    

The victim, now 13, testified from the witness stand how Boodram forced her to take off her clothes, beat and bit her about her body while he had sex with her about four times in his car. The ordeal, the girl said, lasted about two to three hours. Justice Holdip and the nine-member jury heard from the victim how she was left bareback on the lonely canefield road. The girl said she walked to a house nearby for assistance. She had to be warded at hospital for five days. Police witnesses testified that the attack left blue-black marks on the girl’s forehead and upper body. Holdip told Boodram, “This ordeal must have been a most frightening thing for that child. She was left in a position of abject embarrassment when made to walk up the street dressed only in her trousers.”

Boodram was arrested by Sgt Cecil Santana. WPC Hodge laid the charges. State attorney Sambucharan told the court that during that same year, Boodram was convicted and sentenced to two years for committing indecent assault. However, Boodram’s defence attorney Chateram Sinanan made a plea in mitigation, saying that Boodram was a kick-boxing trainer who had volunteered his services to the community without obligation. In reply, however, Holdip remarked: “Many students have passed through his hands having trained and taken them to world recognition. Yet he has a darker side which manifested itself on August 15, 1998.” The judge added that it was the darker side which society frowns upon.