30-year sentence begins

Dominique London, a 41-year-old Claxton Bay shoemaker who kept a 15-year-old school girl for over seven hours and raped her three times, lost his appeal yesterday, and a 30-year sentence with hard labour imposed on him was affirmed. His sentence began yesterday. In affirming the sentence, Justice of Appeal Rolston Nelson, said it was “a very nasty offence of rape,” and noted that London had a history of violence and showed no remorse for his crime. Special prosecutor Devan Rampersad, who argued that the Court should maintain the 30-year sentence,  noted that the girl had just turned 15 when she was tricked and deceived by London who claimed he knew her father. Rampersad reminded the Court that even while the girl pleaded for mercy, London choked her into submission until she fell unconscious and continued to rape her.

He further pointed out an aggravated factor was that London was out on bail pending an appeal on a previous conviction of robbery with aggravation  when he raped the girl. He also reminded the Court that London had seven previous convictions, one of which was for indecent assault. He insisted that the facts of the case justified the length of the sentence. London’s attorney Ryan Cameron, had earlier informed the court,  which included Justices Nelson, Lionel Jones and Alan Mendonca, that he was seeking leave to withdraw his client’s appeal against conviction since he could not find any sustainable ground of appeal. However, he sought leave to argue severity of sentence. London was found guilty of committing the offence in March 1998 and was sentence to 30 years by Justice Melville Baird on January 30, 2003 at the San Fernando Assizes.