HAMILTON, Bermuda, CMC - A 40-year-old convicted Jamaican sex offender with Bermudian family ties has lost a final court battle to stay in the country and will be deported to his homeland.
Ten years ago, Brittonie Taylor, was jailed for 16 years before being released in 2020.
He was granted a temporary reprieve last October after his lawyer, Victoria Greening, argued that he had not been given a fair opportunity to challenge the deportation order.
But the Supreme Court heard on Thursday that his challenge failed and British Governor Rena Lalgie had ordered him to be sent back to Jamaica, although it was not immediately clear when the deportation would take place.
“It's not what my client wanted, to be deported, but he will comply,” Greening said.
The Royal Gazette newspaper quoted Greening as saying that Taylor was grateful to have been granted legal aid to mount his challenge and to have been given the “opportunity to engage in a fair, or a much fairer, process”.
Puisne judge Larry Mussenden said he was lifting “the stay of the deportation order so that the deportation can continue.
“That is the order of the court,” he said, adding “best wishes to Mr Taylor.”
Taylor said in an affidavit last year that he had a 23-year-old stepdaughter, 17-year-old twins, and a 10-year-old son with his Bermudian wife.
“I have a close relationship with my children, particularly with my 17-year-old son. Since my release in October 2020, I have spent regular and quality time with him, fishing and making up for the time lost when I was incarcerated.
“My son was – and still is – extremely distressed when he learned that I had been taken back to prison and that the authorities are considering my deportation,” said Taylor , who was jailed in 2012 after he pleaded guilty to a daylight sexual assault on a woman at a bus stop the previous year.
He admitted carrying his victim to an isolated area and forcing her to perform a sex act on him.
Taylor also attempted to rape the woman, but she was able to alert a passerby to the attack.
The sentence was later reduced to 14 years by the Court of Appeal.
He also admitted to twice accosting a female jogger 35 minutes before the bus stop attack and was sentenced to another year in jail for intruding on her privacy.
Attorney General Kathy Lynn Simmons issued a public notice warning when Taylor was released from Westgate prison in October 2020.
The Governor signed a deportation order and he was due to be flown back to Jamaica on a commercial flight on March 29 last year.
But Taylor was arrested the day before the flight for an alleged failure to attend a pre-flight COVID-19 test and breach of an order to quarantine.
He was alleged to have made threatening comments while being taken to prison after his arrest and was said to have told officers he would “take the whole plane down” if they deported him.
Greening filed a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that Taylor's arrest and detention were unlawful, but Justice Mussenden disagreed, saying it was lawful because of his conduct when served with the deportation notice.
The judge said a rescheduled deportation by private jet, scheduled to happen on April 23 last year, should not go ahead until the outcome of civil proceedings brought by Taylor to try to get the deportation order quashed.
0 Comments