Convicted child rapist to know fate on Monday in appeal against 28-year sentence

After several months of deliberations, the Court of Appeal (CoA) of Guyana will on Monday deliver its ruling in an appeal filed by a convicted child rapist who is seeking to have his 28-year jail sentence set aside.
In April 2018, 28-year-old Colvin Norton was jailed after being found guilty by a jury of the offence of engaging in sexual penetration with a child under the age of 16.
The charges against Norton had stated that he sexually penetrated a six-year-old girl on August 1, 2013, and then again on August 6 of that same year. He was 19 years old at the time.

For the first count, he was sentenced to 24 years in prison, however, on the second count, trial Judge Jo Ann Barlow added four more years to the first sentence for aggravating factors, thereby sentencing him to 28 years on that count. The two sentences were ordered to be served concurrently.
The court was told that Norton was caught in the act by the child’s mother on the second occasion.
It was revealed that after he had sexually penetrated the child, he told her not to tell anyone as her mother would not believe her. It was also revealed that he had also threatened the girl, that if she told her mother, he would kill both her and her mother.
At Norton’s sentencing hearing in April 2018, the child, in her impact statement, had expressed that she still gets flashbacks about the incident, which she blamed for causing a decline in her grades at school.
At first, she said she felt sad and as though she was the cause of it happening. However, after realising that she was not the only child who had something like this happen to them and that Norton would be punished, the girl said she was not ashamed anymore.
High Court Judge Jo Ann Barlow, in sentencing the convict, considered his age at the time of the commissioning of the offence, but stressed that it was not an excuse for violating the young girl.
Justice Barlow considered that the offender breached the trust of the child’s mother, who had entrusted him to care for not only the six-year-old but others as well. “Like a thief in the night, you violated a six-year-old,” the Judge remarked.
She also pointed out that Norton trying to silence the victim showed his total disregard for proper moral values. The Judge further noted that sexual offenders have issues with controlling their emotions and ordered that Norton undergo treatment under the sexual offender’s rehabilitation programme.
She also ordered the prison service to expose him to programmes to improve his literacy. Justice Barlow had also expressed hope for the child to continue receiving counselling.