Sascha Wil­son

The moth­er of a young man who was twice sodomised when he was 12 years old yes­ter­day re­fused to ac­cept an apol­o­gy from the man who hurt her child. De­scribed as a sex­u­al preda­tor and a pae­dophile, Owen Moore, 58, of San Fer­nan­do, was sen­tenced to 24 years in prison with hard labour. He apol­o­gised to the vic­tim's moth­er in the San Fer­nan­do Sec­ond As­sizes. "I apol­o­gise for every­thing," Moore said, but the woman was un­for­giv­ing. "What you want to tell me to for­give you? On De­cem­ber 5 my son will be 21 years old and he can­not lead a prop­er life. You hurt me. You hurt my son," she said. The sin­gle par­ent of two said her son was emo­tion­al­ly scarred, an­gry and com­mit­ting crimes. She said she al­so had to take him to be test­ed for Aids.

Moore, a for­mer San Fer­nan­do City Cor­po­ra­tion em­ploy­ee, was found guilty on two counts of bug­gery on No­vem­ber 21. He com­mit­ted the acts on the child dur­ing the school va­ca­tion on Ju­ly 5, 2003, and Au­gust 16, 2003. State at­tor­ney Jen­nifer Mar­tin, who asked that he be jailed for no less than 15 years, de­scribed Moore as a pae­dophile from whom so­ci­ety need­ed to be pro­tect­ed. In pass­ing sen­tence, Jus­tice Ge­of­frey Hen­der­son said Moore's ac­tions were pre­med­i­tat­ed and dis­grace­ful. "You were a sex­u­al preda­tor as the court sees it, hang­ing around an ar­cade where young chil­dren were, in­clud­ing the vic­tim," the judge said. In re­view­ing the ev­i­dence, the judge said Moore be­friend­ed the child and gave him mon­ey to play games when his mon­ey ran out.

The judge said on two oc­ca­sions, Moore took him from the ar­cade to a place in San Fer­nan­do where he sodomised him. Hen­der­son said the child's moth­er found out a few months lat­er when she was speak­ing to the child and his broth­er about Aids. On each oc­ca­sion af­ter sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ing the child, Moore gave him mon­ey, the court not­ed. Point­ing out that the max­i­mum sen­tence for the of­fence was life im­pris­on­ment, the judge in­di­cat­ed sev­er­al ag­gra­vat­ing fac­tors, in­clud­ing the child's age, his vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty com­ing from a bro­ken home and the fact that the act was com­mit­ted twice and was pre­med­i­tat­ed. The judge, how­ev­er, said he took in­to con­sid­er­a­tion that Moore was a first of­fend­er, his apol­o­gy to the vic­tim's moth­er, and that he was in­car­cer­at­ed four years await­ing tri­al.