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A former police constable who was found guilty of the sexual assault of a minor was sentenced today.  24 year old Darren Martinez will spend 12 years in jail for inserting his finger in the private part of an 8 year old girl.  

At the time in February of 2016, Martinez, was dating the child’s older sister. On December 17, 2019, a jury of 9 unanimously found him guilty.  

Before he decided on the sentence, Justice Colin Williams heard pleas for mitigation from 5 character witnesses, Martinez himself and his attorney, Oswald Twist. 

Twist submitted that Martinez had no previous conviction and that he had expressed his remorse for what he did. 

But Crown Counsel Riis Cattouse countered the mitigation factors by urging the court to pay particular attention to the factor of retribution, expressed through the court as society's abhorrence for a particular type of offence. 

He further stated that the aggravating factors were that the victim was only 8 years old at the time, that the offence was committed at the victim's family home, that the convict was the boyfriend of the victim's older sister, that he was a police officer and that he had breached the family's trust. 

Justice Williams said that the age of the victim was significant because she was particularly young and in this case the aggravating circumstances far outweigh the mitigating circumstances. Nevertheless, he imposed the minimum sentence of 12 years.