|
|
News |
|
|
|
Opinion |
|
|
|
SKN Observer |
|
|
|
Advertising |
|
|
|
Resources |
|
|
|
| Nevisian Gets 12 Years for Rape in Tortola |
| By Geno Marcello |
|
|
 |
Franklyn Huggins |
| |
For 30 seconds of illicit pleasure he forced on his 15-year-old stepdaughter, a Nevis man will spend the next 12 years of his life locked behind bars in a stone, steel prison.
The sentence was imposed on Franklyn Huggins who was 49 when the rape occurred Jan. 21, 2007 at a Soldier's Hill residence in Tortola. That was where Huggins, a solidly built man with a shaved head and a mustache, lived with Omelle Douglas and her children.
Huggins' trial was held in the High Court before Justice Indra Hariprashad-Charles. The prosecutors were Senior Crown Counsel Tiffany Scatliffe and Valston Graham, and the defendant was represented by Mary Lou Creque.
Huggins tried to defend himself against the rape charges by attempting to shift the blame to the girl, now 18, a defense Justice Hariprashad-Charles called reprehensible and said it 'left a bitter taste in everyone's mouth.'
After Huggins was taken into custody, he gave police a lengthy statement that included the following claims:
. He admitted playing a 'blue' pornographic movie that depicted a couple engaged in oral sex, but claimed he did so in order to clarify the kind of sex the teenage girl allegedly had with her boy friend at the time, a young married man. The movie was played in his bedroom which was next to the young girl's bedroom while her mother was at work.
Huggins denied the rape charges but said his stepdaughter was upset because he smelled her body while she was wrapped in a towel after taking a shower. The prosecutors argued that he was attempting to use the pornographic movie to get the girl sexually aroused, a charge Huggins denied.
Vehemently denying the rape charges, Huggins claimed, 'I did not have sex with her...I raised that child...I am a father and a father figure!'
Although Huggins lived with her mother, the girl admitted she never felt comfortable around him because he was continuously trying to touch her and handle her in an inappropriate manner.
Huggins argued during the trial that the teen was upset with him because he had learned of a sexual relationship she was having with a married man and told her mother about it after promising he would not reveal the information.
The defendant claimed that on the day the alleged rape occurred he asked her if her boy friend had ever performed oral sex on her. When she responded by shaking her head in a positive manner, he said he had some 'blue' movies and would show her what he meant.
According to testimony, the teenager said he called her into his room where the sex film was playing and asked her if that was what she and her married boy friend had engaged in inside the house. A short time later, according to the girl, he pulled the towel off her, forced her legs apart, penetrated her for 20 to 30 seconds and fondled her breasts.
She told the court that she never got along well with Huggins.
'He always tried to get close to me and tried to hold me arm inappropriately,' she testified. When the actor in the porn film touched the actress intimately, Huggins, she said, told her he could do the same to her.
She said she left his bedroom and that Huggins said he was going into town. She said she decided to take a shower, removed her pants and under things and wrapped a towel around herself. She was sitting on the bed, she said, when Huggins entered the room wearing a pair of blue Navy briefs.
She said he approached her bed, pulled the towel off her body, forced her legs open and raped her.
'I felt horrible,' she said.
After getting up, she claimed Huggins said he would get a box of condoms for them to use in the future and added that she should 'leave her bedroom open' in the evenings and not tell her mother anything because she suffered from hypertension.
Before reading the verdict to the defendant on Tuesday, Justice Hariprashad-Charles said Huggins attempted to shift the blame to the victim and that 'this left a bitter taste in everyone's mouth.'
Omelle Douglas testified on behalf of Huggins, saying her daughter had been rude to both of them. She also said that at first she was inclined to believe her daughter's story about being raped, but began to have doubts after hearing the girl was giggling during a rape examination at Peebles Hospital.
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
