Rapist jailed for 13½ years after grooming child
(CNS): A 34-year-old man who groomed and raped a child when she was just eleven and twelve years old was jailed for 13 years and six months, having been convicted in September last year. Travis Arlington Ebanks was sentenced in April, but the ruling was only recently released by the court. Ebanks was found guilty of grooming the young girl from when she was just nine years old, using a Snapchat account and deceiving the child by pretending to be only 14 years old.
According to the details of the case, the child had blocked Ebanks on a number of occasions, but he would then create new accounts under different names to pursue her. The court found that Ebanks had planned the offence when he first raped the girl in the back of a car he had borrowed from his boss. He lured her to meet him by threatening to tell her family and friends about the bad things she had been doing if she did not meet with him.
Although she cried and asked him to stop, Ebanks continued to rape the young girl. He also succeeded in luring her to meet him for a second time a few weeks later, around the time of her twelfth birthday, when he raped her again at another location in the back of the borrowed vehicle.
The court heard in a victim impact statement how the young victim had blamed herself, thinking she had done something wrong. She had thought he was a friend and had trusted him. However, she said she had come to realise that it was not her fault “but his fault”.
In mitigation, his attorney had argued that Ebanks had shown remorse for what had happened to the victim and was sorry for what she had endured. The offending occurred after he began having problems in his long-term relationship with the mother of his daughter, whom he had not seen for many years. He became depressed and demotivated and began to have feelings of hopelessness. He left the family home and became a loner.
Since he was remanded, he has been estranged from his family, but he has been trying to have some structure in his life by engaging in sporting activities. The court heard that he had made rehabilitation efforts by attending the chapel at the prison regularly and completing several courses.
The court also received a character reference from David Wight MP, who said he had known Ebanks for over ten years as their families were close friends. “I have always found Travis Ebanks to be a hardworking and a very pleasant person,” Wight wrote about the convicted child rapist.
Alongside the 13½-year prison term, the court directed that a sexual harm prevention order be put in place to take effect for ten years once he is released from jail.
- Fascinated
- Happy
- Sad
- Angry
- Bored
- Afraid
“Birds of a feather”, flock together. Shame on David Wight.
About 35/40 years ago a young Bodden Town woman embezzled nearly $80,000 from the bank she was working in to buy things for her (married) boyfriend. When she was brought to trial, one of the MLAs of the time gave her a glowing testimony, known the parents for donkey years, smart child led astray, God fearing (of course) etc etc.So this is nothing new, @7:40. Our politicians know no shame.
If MP does not resign his party must surely fire him. Vile.
Gas station revenue hopefully will drop, cricket and boycott!
Which gas station?
Walker’s Rd
Am I the only correspondent prepared to put his name to this horrendous display of corruption at the highest levels??
Sick bastard should have gotten 13 1/2 life sentences
Maybe meant for a different story? But ok.
This case shows more than anything else how important it is for us to monitor what our children do on social media. Pedophiles such as this find ways to groom our young children. This is just one that came out in public, but there are many others where the children are suffering in silence. Parents need to be aware of what their children are consuming on social media and they need to create safe spaces for their children so that when these things happen, children can turn to their parents for advice and counselling.
Pedophiles such as this prey on our young people. They are manipulative. They make these children feel guilty and they use this guilt to further ostracise the young people from their families and friends and like in this case shame the victims.
Parents of Cayman please wake up. Take a more active role in your children’s lives. See who their friends are. Monitor their social media account. They are children. They have no right to privacy especially when you as a parent are trying to protect them.
I pray that this child receives the help that she gets and that her parents surround her with maximum love and affection for the rest of her life.
This was not on social media!!! Do your research and see how, why and who is alliwing this to happen for years!! Look at the politicians, charged with nothing! Police in their designer hand bags! You are allowing this to happen! You are guilty!
Snapchat is social media. Pedophiles play ground…. Especially when parents don’t monitor what their children are doing online and who they are talking to/who’s taking to them. In my opinion she was too young to be on Snapchat in the first place.
You do something about it, this was not social media, happened in front of your faces!!
Snapchat is social media.
Cayman corrupt Goverment spends $$$$$$$ on themselves and who knows how much elsewhere and overseas….and this abuse continues in Cayman????Answers…???
Your thumbs down says you are guilty too!
This young child/lady needs to be awarded ‘compensation’ by the Courts to be held for her for her recovery, education and future. Hope she is receiving all the councelling and support she needs and becomes strong enough to live a full, happy life.
This guy is not just a rapist he is a Pedophile and he needs to be called what he is. He has preyed on a vulnerable child and she will be scarred for life. Label him what he is; the lowest form of criminal, a Pedophile. This is not something he will be able to change and no amount of praying will convert him. The fact that DW MLA gave him a glowing character reference demonstrates poor judgement.
Methinks “MP” Wight should resign! Now!!
Perverted thumbs down!
Sentenced to 13 1/2 years …… so out in 6 months then – perhaps released next week for time served
He should be flogged in public, serve at least 25 years with no chance for parole, and pay this young lady $1 million for the hurt and damaged she has to endure. He should be castrated, tagged for 10 years with no contact with minors, and put on the Sex Offenders Registry. Oh and MP David Wight provided a good reference, do you realize you’ve endorsed a convicted rapist or are you that cluesless.
There are many walking around and well known, who is going to stop this…???
Perversions of all manner run rife in these Caymans. From children to boardrooms.
Churches stay silent unless they see a rainbow flag.
Police laugh at many reports.
ask me how i know.
Courts. not worthy discussing
The perverted thumbs down!
This is very sad, very sick. And made so much worse by an MP writing a character reference for this perpetrator. Though it doesn’t surprise me – I once had this same MP tell me that he “thought I had good sense” as an insult because I didn’t agree with his view that Trump was the saviour of the western world!
An MP gave a character reference for rape? Not surprised but still sick to my stomach. David should be ashamed of himself.
In what world did David Wight think it was a good idea to give a character reference??!!!
This is why our Islands need meaningful rehabilitation opportunities.
Modern day scarlett letter better
For the MP or the rapist?
Huh?Who you getting that from?
In Florida it would have been death sentence.
The bill, HB 1297, allows judges to impose the death penalty when sentencing people convicted of the rape of a child age 12 or under.
Florida? Where Trump lives? That Florida?
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
In many US states it is actually legal to marry a minor. Not sure about Florida though. Maybe ask Congressman Gaetz who has expertise in such matters.
Love Gaetz
For Pete’s sake, the man got almost assassinated. What did he do to you personally that you seem to hate the entire Florida?
Well I’ve had to endure the last eight years listening to his daily verbal effluence. It’s been tedious and exhausting.
Elon Musk summed it up perfectly when he said Trump is “too old to be chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America”.
Ask yourself honestly. Would you want your half senile, geriatric grandfather in charge of anything, including the TV remote?
Nothing against Florida itself. But since you ask, it’s just not very American. Might as well be part of Cuba.
Nothing to do with a British Overses Territory as much as you Americans and Canadians think you own the place and attitudes.
Nothing to do with USA!
what MP writes a character reference for a child rapist. 13.5 years needs a few more zeros and castration
Guy destroyed the life of an innocent young woman. Sentence should be life because he ruined hers.
Unbelievable that his sentence is only 13 years; should be life!
David Wight needs to have his head checked. After something like this he choses to defend the character of this scum rather than offer his sympathy and condone his actions? Pretty much sums up the character of our elected officials.
Flag-flying PPM members doing the lord’s work once again
I honestly believe that a wider availability of sex toys on island would help to prevent this sort of impulsive behavior in both genders.
A weak compromise to allowing professional escort services, though I would accept the argument that men who rape children aren’t exactly in a spot to drop 500 on a fun night rather than 100 on an adult toy that lasts years.
Source: went through a rough divorce, didn’t have it in me to date, caved and bought a pocket, erm, kitty from a local store and it filled (pun intended) that desire while my heart healed. Surprised me they were available, but it was tucked in a back room.
There was once a fellow who called himself the “Sex Doctor”. Had a lic plate that said so. He sold life insurance (excellent policies), fake Rolexes (of high quality), ancient coins (I saw him showing one dated “20 BC”) and sex toys (he said he had saved at least half the marriages in Cayman).
This illustrates a complete lack of understanding of child sex abuse. Do not conflate the desire to force someone to have sex with you – let alone a child – with normal consensual sexual encounters.
There is no excuse for raping a child. None. Please stop trying to minimize this serious, disgusting crime by equating it to being horny. I am horny every day, and not a single time have I ever considered that the solution might be to groom a child for months, threaten them, and then rape them in the back of a vehicle, twice.
Bro, WTH! you need to attend rehabilitation too!
There is a very, very, VERY big gap between using sex toys and deliberately, methodically grooming a minor before executing a plan to rape them.
No kink shaming on anyone using a sex toy at all. But ‘I was really horny’ is never, EVER an excuse to commit a non-consensual act.
Are you trying to say that if a man has sex toys that he won’t rape a child??? The issue here is not the availability of sex toys. It’s the issue that would make a grown man groom and rape a child. Clearly the man has deep mental issues beyond that of de-motivation and depression. This was not impulsive behavior.
You are sick.
Pedophiles are sick and can’t be cured.
A character reference from a MP for a rapist of an 11 years young child …????
That’s cayman for you!
That should not be Cayman for anyone, your comment shows the complacency, change it!
Perverted thumbs down!
Whoever thumbs down should be incarcerated too!
This is why the Uk government needs to rule.
LMAO yeah lets bring in a whole bag of nonces (that can’t even run their own shitshow of a country) to run an island of underprivileged immigrants. That will surely end well.
This is why Cayman citizens and voters needs to rule! Change the attitude!
LMAO then do something about it nonce of a small town with your abusers!
Character with ness DW? Please step down as a minister. Disgusting. How about helping the victim!
he should’ve been castrated and caned too.
A character reference from an MP for a convicted rapist. Now you can understand how these people require no mental gymnastics to form coalitions of political expedience with convicted women beaters.