Pastor Paul Hanniford, the clergyman convicted
for having sex with a 13-year-old girl after telling
her mother he was taking the teen and her
brother for a drive-out, has been sentenced to
20 years in prison.
The sentence was handed down by Justice
Lorna Shelly Williams in the Home Circuit Court
yesterday.
The 55-year-old Pentecostal pastor was
convicted last month.
The in-camera trial featured testimony from the
now 15-year-old victim and her then five-year-
old brother, who watched through a bedroom
window as his sister was being sexually
assaulted.
Going For "drive Out"
Prosecutors led evidence that the pastor took
the victim and her sibling to his house under
the pretence that they were going for a "drive
out".
The five-year-old boy was given a bowl of
cornflakes and placed around a dining table as
the then 13-year-old victim asked to use the
bathroom, prosecutors revealed.
Hanniford reportedly accompanied her to the
bathroom before leading the child to a bedroom,
where the assault took place.
According to prosecutors, the five-year-old boy
began searching for his sister when he heard
her crying out for help and climbed on to a
chair that allowed him to peer into the bedroom
and witness the assault.
Afterwards, prosecutors said Hanniford returned
the children to their mother, who was waiting
for them at his church, and tried to convince
the 13-year-old that what happened was their
"little secret" and that she should not tell
anyone.
Prosecutors said that on reuniting with his
mother, the boy made several attempts to tell
her about the attack in the presence of the
pastor, but was shut down by the minister. On
the fourth attempt, they said, he blurted out an
account of what happened.