A Guyanese pastor in the Caribbean island chain of the Turks & Caicos was on Monday sentenced to 11 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to raping two girls under the age of 15, multiple times.
According to The Sun, a local newspaper, Derrick Miller, on March 4, 2022, pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted rape and one count of raping a child under the age of 16 and five counts of raping another girl who was under the age of 13.
According to the report, the victims met Miller sometime in 2014 at the Salvation Army Church in Providenciales, where he was a pastor up to the time of his arrest for the offences before the court. The rapes took place at his home in Blue Hills and at the Salvation Army Church building in Plantation Hills.
When he first met the girls they were eight and six-years-old, but at the time of the offences they were 11 and 14-years-old respectively.
Supreme Court Judge, Madame Justice Tanya Lobban-Jackson, who sentenced the convicted Guyanese man told him, “Religious and community leaders are entrusted with children and the vulnerable for their care and protection, not for that trust or for the children to be used and abused. Persons in the community have come to admire, look up to and respect religious leaders, and when those in positions of trust abuse that trust, it damages not only victims but also has a negative impact on the community,” the report stated.
She sentenced Miller to nine years imprisonment on each count of attempted rape, and 11 years imprisonment on each count of rape. The sentences are to run concurrently and time spent on remand is to be taken into account.
The report informed that the facts of the case indicated that the complaint arose on May 21, 2021 when the elder child’s phone was taken away in school. Her older brother was called in and when he checked the child’s phone he found a conversation of a sexual nature between Miller and the child.
The matter was reported to the police and the child later told the police that the rapes commenced sometime after March 25, 2020, and that on two occasions, Miller took the two girls to his home and had sexual intercourse with the older girl in the presence of the younger.
When the second child was interviewed, she revealed that in 2020 and 2021, there were occasions when Miller would take her to school and sometimes buy her toiletries. Then one day in January, 2021, after church, he informed her that he had been having sex with the first child and invited her to join them. Miller then took her to his home and attempted to have sex with her, but was unsuccessful. He then had oral sex with her.
According to the judgment, as a result of being one of the victims in this case, Girl ‘A’ has been separated from her family and placed in a safer environment.
“This aspect has apparently had the most devastating effect on her. She blames “Captain Miller” who was her godfather, an indication of the high regard in which he was held by her family. Girl ‘A’ says that she feels bad about what happened and “wants Captain Miller to know that he is a bad person and need to stay in prison for the rest of his life because I do not want this to ever happen to any other child.” Girl ‘A’, who has been receiving counselling, says she is often sad and has trust issues, especially around men. However, she feels safer knowing that (Miller) is in prison. In summary and in her own words Girl ‘A’ said: “I want Captain Miller to stay in jail forever, I believe Captain Miller is a danger, he should remain in prison for a long time because of the things he has taken away from me.”
The other victim, opted not to write a victim impact statement but shared that she feels terrible about what transpired.
The judgment noted that the pre-sentence report disclosed that Miller is 48 years old, was raised in a good home, his father was an assistant commissioner of police, and his mother a school principal. He spent the majority of his formative years attending church and categorised his childhood in positive terms.
Miller, who is married, received a high school diploma at North Georgetown Secondary School here. He attended the Salvation Army Training College in Jamaica, where he completed several training courses including “Safe & Sound,” a programme designed for the protection of children and vulnerable adults. He also enrolled in the Jamaican Theological College where he pursued a bachelor’s degree in theology.
The judgment noted that Miller’s family members and colleagues expressed shock at his involvement in the current offences. The Salvation Army Divisional Commander described his actions as “totally out of character,” and noted that “grown adults interfering with children cannot be taken lightly.”
Miller was assessed as being “articulate, manipulative and charismatic; all traits he used for his benefit to achieve his desired goals… given his charming personality and the help he provided to the victims and their families, it was easy for an attachment to form. Mr. Miller is well knowledgeable about the various psychosocial aspects of vulnerable children and families. He performed many functions which made it easy to cross boundaries and have sexual interactions with the victims.”
In arriving at the sentences, Judge Lobban-Jackson said she considered a victim impact statement, a pre-sentence report and took the principles of sentencing, including the totality principle into account.
“The court bore in mind that it had to balance a number of competing interests and objectives; and therefore to tailor the sentence to suit the offence(s) and the offender, while maintaining a level of transparency,” she explained. “The court considered the vulnerability of the victims, as a result of extreme youth and personal circumstances; and culpability, due to (Miller’s) abuse of the trust reposed in him as the pastor of the church which the victims attended. As well as, evidence of grooming behaviour towards the victims, and also places of the offending,” the newspaper article added.
