A 37-year-old man who raped his three nieces aged nine, eight and 10 years old, was handed a life jail term by the High Court in Suva.

The offender was convicted and sentenced for six counts of rape, five counts of attempted rape and one count of sexual assault offences against the three child victims, between January 31, 2019 and January 31, 2020 at Levuka, Ovalau.

He was given a non-parole period of 16 years imprisonments before he could apply for parole. On six separate occasions, between 1 and 31 August 2019, the offender secretly enticed the first victim aged nine to a cassava plantation in the bush.

For the second victim aged eight, she went to the offender’s place to play with his young daughters, sometimes between 31 January 2019 and 31 January 2020.

As for the third victim aged 10, between October 1 and 31 2019, the offender sexually abused her on four separate occasions. Judge Justice Salesi Temo said the acts committed by the offender was an ultimate act of showing utter disrespect to a person.

He told the offender that he was supposed to look after them, care for them and counsel them to become confident and useful citizens of Fiji in the future.

However, unbeknown to their parents and village elders, he was abusing their trust by attempting to rape them, raping them and sexually assaulting one of them on 12 separate occasions.

Justice Temo said this type of offending was becoming prevalent in our village communities, and the time has come for the courts to take a tough approach to provide a deterrence to would-be offenders.

He added that unfortunately, this problem was becoming prevalent in our society, despite the heavy prison sentence passed by the courts for the rape of children.