Man gets 15 year jail term for raping four minors

By ZEDAIAH KANAU
A 48-YEAR-OLD man was jailed 15 years with hard labour for raping four minors between Jan 1, 2016 and June 10, 2017.
In sentencing on Friday, Justice George Manuhu told Waguo Maroma, from East Sepik, that as an adult, he should have known better.
“You are … at that age, you should know better when committing the offences,” Manuhu said.
Maroma was found guilty of three counts of rape and one of persistent rape of girls aged four, six (two victims) and seven.
The court heard that Maroma befriended the girls by pretending to be “playful and “mixing around” with them.
“The mitigating factor is that the accused is a first time offender, pleaded guilty to the first three counts and the fourth he denied and successfully appealed.
“I have to commend him for making it easy for the court because it would have taken a great deal of time to conduct a trial in relation to four separate victims,” Manuhu said.
The court initially imposed a 20-year sentence on Maroma’s first count and 15 years each on the remaining three counts totalling up to 65 years in prison.
“Obviously I cannot sentence you to 65 years. I will remove 50 years which leaves you with 15 years to serve.
“You committed four offences that are very serious and honestly, I thought about jailing you 20 years,” Manuhu said.
“But you are already 48 years old and you pleaded guilty, so I reduce the sentence to 15 years jail with hard labour.
“Given that you have been in custody and we don’t for how long, you will come back to court on Monday (today) and the lawyers will assist the court in deducting time spent in custody from your sentence.”