Sentenced last month to 47 years in prison for raping an eight-year-girl back in 2015 and then repeating the crime two years later, Ivor Laud has lodged an appeal with the Guyana Court of Appeal on the claim that his sentence is too harsh.
Following his conviction by a jury, Justice Jo-Ann Barlow imposed 22 years on the first count and 25 on the second, but ordered that the sentences be served concurrently, which means that Laud would only have to serve 25 years.
In his notice of appeal, Laud (the Appellant), contends that the sentence is “too severe” in all the circumstances of his case and further describes it as being “manifestly excessive.”
He argues, too, that the trial judge did not consider any personal mitigating circumstances/factors regarding him as it related to sentence.
Laud is hoping that the appellate court would set aside and/or reduce his sentence.
Before sentencing him, Justice Barlow had said that she considered both the mitigating and aggravating circumstances to arrive at a balance and noted that while the offence carries a maximum sentence of life in prison, she did not find that Laud’s case had fallen into the “worst of the worst” category to have so warranted.
On the first count, the judge commenced at a base of 22 years, to which she made no further additions or deductions.
On the second count, which she commenced at a base of 24 years, however, the judge said that a one-year addition was warranted, given a number of aggravating factors.
First of all, the judge said she found Laud to have been emboldened in his actions after raping the child the first time, leading to him raping her a second time.
Justice Barlow said, too, she considered as aggravating factors that Laud was an adult with a family of his own, had breached a position of trust and had taken no responsibility for his actions. She pointed out that he instead sought to advance a “conspiracy theory” of the complainant’s relatives framing him and encouraging her to say that he had sexually assaulted her.
On account of the aggravating factors, the judge added the additional year to the base sentence on the second count, taking it to 25 years.
She noted that mitigating factors were found, but said that the aggravating ones far outweighed those, and so no deductions would be made.
The judge did, however, cite Laud’s good behaviour in prison during the three weeks he had been remanded awaiting sentence, and the fact that he had no antecedents, as mitigating factors.
