Sex offender’s appeal to cut jail time fails

(CNS): An application by Kayson Ricardo Holness (34) to reduce a 33-month sentence, which was imposed in May last year after he pleaded guilty to child pornography charges, has failed. Holness was convicted of possessing, posting and sharing videos of child sexual abuse. One of the videos he transmitted included images of a baby, possibly as young as four months old, being raped.

In June 2020, the police opened an investigation into a Facebook posting under the name Djfreshlink after the images were sent to Sandy Hill, the owner of Cayman Marl Road, and she passed them on to the police.

The social media posting was traced to Holness, a Jamaican national who was in Cayman working as a barber at the time. He was arrested and admitted to downloading and sharing the video but claimed he did so to see if someone recognised the infant.

At the time he said that he did not know it was illegal to transmit such images. But when his phone was analysed by police intelligence officers, they found other videos containing child pornography that had been sent to other people.

He was convicted last year and sentenced by Justice Cheryll Richards, who based her sentencing on UK guidelines in the continuing absence of local guidelines in the Cayman Islands for such offences.

Although Keith Myers, the attorney who represented Holness, had presented some previous local cases to the court, the judge found that none of them applied. According to the published ruling from the Court of Appeal, the higher court agreed with the sentencing judge that there were factors in this case that were more serious.

Starting with a potential five-year term, Justice Richards identified two aggravating factors: the age as well as the discernible pain and distress of the child depicted in the video. As a result, the sentence was increased by eight months.

She then took into account mitigating factors, including Holness’s cooperation, delays in the case that were not his fault, his early admissions, his remorse and the fact that he had no previous convictions, as well as the standard one-third discount for an early guilty plea.

The judge arrived at the sentence of two years and nine months and imposed a sexual harm prevention order.

Representing Holness at the appeal, Myers argued that the sentence was manifestly excessive because the starting point was too high and was inconsistent with other sentences in the Cayman Islands for similar offences.

However, the appeal court disagreed. The panel said that Justice Richards had a right to start higher than the English guidelines, given that the maximum sentence here for these types of offences is higher than in the UK, and judges have ultimate discretion in relation to their starting points.

They also rejected Myers’ points about three other cases. The appeal court found that the information they provided was inadequate, and the information that the court had indicated that these cases were different, involving less serious categories of images.

“We agree with the judge that no useful assistance can be derived from these three cases,” the appeal court judges stated in their ruling. “The facts appear to vary considerably, and there is no explanation of the sentences or of the surrounding circumstances. Furthermore, all of them appear to be less serious in certain respects than the present case.”

The appeal court said, “As has often been stated, offences of possession or transmission of indecent images of children are not victimless crimes. Real children are sexually abused in order to produce the images. Those who download or transmit such images help fuel the market for their production. In this case, a child between 4 and 18 months old was sexually penetrated by an adult male and clearly suffered considerably.”

Supporting the decision of the sentencing judge, the appeal court justices said the total sentence was not manifestly excessive, given the material concerned, and that she had reduced the sentence to account for mitigating factors and Holness’s admissions. They said that Myers’ arguments “must fail”, as they dismissed the appeal and upheld the sentence.

Holness has already served more than a year of the sentence. As all prisoners serve only 66% of their time in jail and the rest on licence on the basis of good behaviour, he can expect to be released early next year.

The publication of the appeal caused a stir on social media this week, as many people believe the sentence was far too light.

Speaking on Cayman Marl Road on Thursday, Premier Wayne Panton said that he would talk to the attorney general about the issue of inadequate sentences for such offences and ask why Cayman still doesn’t have a system for publicising the names of convicted offenders. While a sex offenders register now exists, it is not public and access is reserved for law enforcement and related agencies.

Although there continues to be public demand for mandatory minimum sentences, many experts believe that they do not help and that judges are best placed to decide on these types of cases, since circumstances can vary widely. The judges, who have the full details of each specific offence and offender, can then exercise their judgment based on those facts.

Cayman introduced a mandatory minimum sentence for firearms offences, which has done nothing to reduce local gun crime. But men and women convicted of illegal gun possession have been sentenced to the same jail term, even though cases vary widely in seriousness.

Some attorneys have argued that this has led to genuine injustices which the courts have been unable to correct because of the ineffectual mandatory minimum sentence.

---