‘Slow’ rapist jailed for 13 years

A TOBAGO man found guilty of violently raping a deaf mute young woman four years ago was yesterday jailed for a total of 13 years with hard labour .

Isaiah Benjamin, 23, of Seaview Trace, Golden Lane, was sentenced by Madame Justice Paula Mae-Weekes in the Tobago Assizes. Benjamin, who was represented by attorney Larry Williams, was found guilty by a nine-member jury last month  and sentencing was postponed pending a probation report. On the charge of rape, Benjamin was jailed for eight years hard labour. He was also jailed for two years hard labour for indecent assault, and three years hard labour for assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Charges in the matter were laid by Cpl Carlisle Frank.

“Your actions could only be described as extremely predatory,” Justice Weekes told Benjamin, noting that he had been found guilty of rape in circumstances in which the victim was a young girl from his village. “You could not fail to know she had an impediment, being deaf and dumb. It must have occurred to you she had this impediment when she did not scream when you first attacked her,” the judge observed. According to evidence, the 22-year-old victim boarded a car on Wilson Road, Scarborough around 7 pm on December 18, 1999. Benjamin was one of the four occupants in the vehicle. On reaching Golden Lane junction they all disembarked and the victim was walking along the roadway to her home when Benjamin confronted her and started fondling her breast. The victim resisted. They wrestled, during which he struck her and pulled her down a bushy incline where he allegedly committed the act.