Rapists get 20 years

Two of four youngsters who carved an ugly scar on this country’s tourism sector will spend the next 20 years behind bars for rape.

Junior Morgan, 19, of New Prospect and Nyron Morgan, 25, also the same address were slapped with the heavy custodial sentences by presiding Judge Justice Frederick Bruce Lyle last Friday at the High Court in Kingstown.{{more}}

The two other men, Leroy Rodney 25 and Clifton Rodney 18 pleaded not guilty to the charge and their matter will be called up later on in the assizes.

The nation came to a standstill on May 30, 2006 when news spread like wildfire that two Florida teenagers and their 50 year-old mother were beaten badly and then raped.

It was said that the four men attacked the teenagers and their mother after they aborted an expedition with three other family members and a tour guide up the slopes of La Soufriere.

A visibly irate Justice Bruce Lyle chided the two men as they stood in box, one looking out the window and the other looking at the ceiling.

“Nobody is safe anymore because of people like you, no one is safe to go in the Tobago Cays or another place,” the judge said.

Bruce Lyle said that in recent times the judiciary has been under attack for leniency. “Today I am going to send out a clear message and do my duty, I sentence you both to twenty years,” said Bruce Lyle.

They also received five years each for wounding and inflicting grievous bodily harm. Their sentences would run concurrently.(KW)