Convicted rapist apologises to victim, admits 'extreme sexual perversion'

A CONVICTED rapist serving prison time apologised to one of his victims in the High Court on Monday.

In what might have been a first, the victim and her attacker spoke to each other and expressed their thoughts and feelings about what took place in 2007.

The exchange took place virtually before Justice Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds, who accepted a plea deal between Kester Benjamin and the State which led to his pleading guilty to grievous sexual assault and the unlawful detention of the victim, who was then 17, on August 29, 2007, in Diego Martin, as she made her way home from classes.

Benjamin will be sentenced on April 25. He was represented by deputy chief public defender Raphael Morgan. The State was represented by senior prosecutor Danielle Thompson.

At Monday’s hearing, the judge had to be satisfied all the requirements set out under the Criminal Procedure (Plea Discussion and Plea Agreement) Act had been met before she allowed him to plead guilty.

This also included hearing from the victim, in a victim impact statement. Benjamin was also allowed to speak to her since she agreed and the judge gave her an opportunity to speak to him directly.

In her statement, the victim, now 32, said it was hard to describe the impact the incident had on her. At the time she was doing a business diploma but never completed it.

She spoke of the trauma she experiences whenever she reads reports of rape, including the abduction and murder of Ashanti Riley (murdered in 2020, aged 18) by someone who “viewed her as a sexual outlet” for their pleasure. She said she could not understand what made Benjamin feel he had the authority to force himself on her.

Travelling at night leaves her paranoid, she said.

Although in the statement she asked for no mercy to be shown to Benjamin, she later changed her position when she addressed him during the hearing.

“Mr Benjamin, I accept your apology. The part where I said don't have any mercy: I was in a different place when I wrote that, even though it was a little while ago.

"After seeing you, you are a human being. It would be hard to comprehend. It was not a good experience and is still not a good experience. I still feel all types of emotions,” she told him.

She said although her family was adamant that she should not participate in the hearing, she felt it important for her and other people. She said the last time she saw him in virtual court, she was upset and called her sister, telling her she felt sorry for the man.

“I said, 'I am feeling sorry for him sitting there.' She said, ‘You feeling sorry for him?’ I said. 'Yes, what is wrong with me?'”

She said she now understood his explanation after he did research in an attempt to figure out his actions.

“My family would say, 'He is just apologising to you because he just wants to come out (of prison), don’t believe that. He is very suave.'

"My response to them was that God would know what is in his heart, whether he is reformed and sorry. Mr Benjamin, I accept your apology.”

She told him she hoped he used his experience to benefit others in a positive way, for young men to understand themselves, “Because what you have been going through is a sickness that did not start in your adult years. I am sure there would be something that could be traced back to your childhood that may not be aware of that would have caused you to be the way you are…

“I hope you have a better life when you are released and you are able to pick up the pieces and you continue to look for purpose in your life and try to be better.”

She rejected his offer to pay for her schooling if she wanted.

The judge praised the woman.

“I want to validate you as a young woman of great courage to have done what you just did, and that you maintained your composure in the way you did.

“You have demonstrated the very mercy you said not so long ago said he was not to have. The application of mercy while remaining practical…That is what I call restorative justice.”

In his statement to the victim and the court, Benjamin said he took notice of his victim’s saying she could not understand how someone could do what he did to another person.

“Now this is not an excuse, it is just an explanation, and I think I owe her that explanation. A lot of people would be wondering how somebody could do that.”

Benjamin said he spent his time in prison doing research and from what he learned, “I gave it a name.”

“It is a sickness, and I call it extreme sexual perversion. I was suffering from that, and it took over ten years of therapy for me to recognise what I was doing and the hurt I was causing to people.”

He said when something happened to his sister, who was robbed and thrown out of a car, he began to understand what he put people through.

“I decided there and then to not be the problem no more and to become part of the solution. And it really took time to really consider my actions.

"I just want to tell you that I am really, really, really sorry. I know my words might not heal the hurt that I caused you, and it will never heal the scars, but I want you to know that I am really, really sorry...

“There is absolutely no explanation or excuse for it. Please find it in your heart in some way, maybe not now, to forgive me for that, and I assure you if the court gives me the chance, something like this will not happen again.,,

“Your only sin that day was that you wanted to go home and I took advantage of that. Most people don’t understand sexual perversion. I have lived it and I understand it, so I will like to help other people going through this because most of society will just take people and shaft them for that because that is not a crime that anybody likes.

“But it is a sickness and it took me over ten years to realise that, and I hope that answers the question of how somebody could do something like that. There are really sick people out there who need help.”

Benjamin admitted to not being 100 per cent cured, but now knows what he needs to abstain from.

“I cannot watch porn, and cannot be in places where there are loud things going on, and to abstain from these things. So it comes like I put up these barriers to ensure that I don’t ever do something like what I did to you that night.”

He also told the judge there were some cases he “won and did the crime,” and wanted to know if he could apologise to those victims as well. But Ramsumair-Hinds intervened saying she did not think it was appropriate, as they were not at the sitting and it would not benefit them in the way he hoped it would.

THE CRIME

At about 9 pm on August 29, 2007, the 17-year-old girl was on her way home after classes in Petit Bourg when she went to the Diego Martin taxi stand. A blue car pulled up and the driver signalled he was going to Diego Martin.

Benjamin picked up three other passengers, who dropped off in Cocorite and Covigne Road, and she paid him to go off route. At some point, Benjamin pretended to be speaking on his cellphone and told her he was going to pick up his wife and children before dropping her home.

He parked his car in a lonely area that had a precipice to one side and an incline to the other. He engaged his handbrakes and locked the doors.

She tried calling a relative, but he knocked her phone out of her hand and told her he would have to tie her up. He forced her to perform oral sex on him.

When he tried to rape her, another vehicle drove up the incline where they were.

It turned out to be the police and PC Shaka Trim saw a man struggling with something.

Benjamin, the prosecutor said, exclaimed, “S---,” and told his victim not to scream, but she did, alerting the police.

Unsure who the occupants of the other car were, she tried to run and only stopped when she saw a gun pointed at her. The person withthe gun identified himself as a police officer and she told him what had happened.

Benjamin was confronted and he denied it. He was taken to the West End police station and charged. A shoelace was found in the car which would have been used to tie up his victim.