DNA results puts rapist behind bars

DNA tests helped convict a man for the prolonged rape and degradation of a pregnant woman, and he has now been sentenced to 25 years in jail.

It is said that on April 17, 2015, Clayton Caine broke into the house where two women lived. Caine had come to that house specifically to prey on one of these women, who awoke when she felt her covers taken off of her. She saw a man, wearing a bandana, standing in the doorway of her room, and called to warn her roommate of his presence.

Caine silenced them with a gun that he had in his hand, and told them not to move, and to lie down with their sheets over their head.

Caine then fondled the woman, telling her that she was the one he came for, and he removed her clothes. Caine took several liberties with the woman’s body which were very degrading, and then he raped her. He had a gun at her side for the entire ordeal.

Her roommate was told that she was next, but was spared because Caine was informed that she was menstruating.

The victim was two months pregnant at this time. At the end of the ordeal, she managed to see Caine’s face because she had to follow him when he was leaving, and he took the bandana off.

She and her roommate reported the matter to a mobile police station after darkness lifted. She was medically examined, and vaginal swabs taken.

By chance they saw the perpetrator on their way back home from the police station, and after inquiring, the two found out who he was.

The police looked for Caine for two days, and when he was located, blood and saliva samples were taken from him.

There was semen on the vaginal swab and this matched Caine’s DNA, so it was either him or a paternal relative.

Caine defence was that the sexual intercourse was consensual.

However, after a full trial, conducted by crown counsels Karim Nelson and Rose-Ann Richardson, he was convicted for aggravated burglary, rape and possession of a firearm with intent to commit an offence.

Justice Brian Cottle sentenced Caine last Friday. He read the victim impact statement, which was extensive. The victim said that she was shocked when she was raped, because she had never expected that to happen to her.

“To this day she says that there are times when she feels that at any moment, anywhere, that someone is looking at her and maybe thinking of ways that they can rape her,” Cottle relayed.

She was ashamed to reveal what happened to her because of the way that society sometimes blames victims of rape.

“She continues to have repeated nightmares about the incident, she cries herself to sleep,” and must check her windows and doors repeatedly across the night.

She felt fear when she had to be tested for sexually transmitted infections.

“She says that she felt humiliated, and degraded, especially since at the time of the incident, she was pregnant,” the Justice relayed.

All the victim could do was to make sure she survived the night.

The Justice applied the draft sentencing guidelines for rape, and placed it in the highest category of seriousness, reserved for acts that involve extreme psychological impact, and degradation. The crime was also placed in the highest level because it was prolonged, and Caine broke into the home.

This would mean that the sentence should be 60 to 90 per cent of the maximum for the crime, which is 30 years incarceration. The Justice decided to impose a sentence that was 75 per cent of the maximum, and so this came up to 22 years and six months.

The court was further aggravated by the fact that the act happened in the presence of someone else, that a weapon was involved, that sexually transmitted infections may have been transferred, and that Caine ejaculated inside of the woman. The court was not placated by any mitigated features.

Therefore, the sentence climbed to 25 years. Caine has already been in prison for two years, two months and 12 days, and so from last Friday he will spend a further 22 years, nine months and two weeks in prison.

Sentences of 11 and 15 years were handed down for the offences of possession of a firearm with intent to commit an offence, and aggravated burglary, respectively.