Convicted sex offender to be deported from Bermuda to Jamaica

(CMR) A Jamaican man who is a convicted sex offender will be deported from Bermuda back to Jamaica after a court ruled he could not stay in the country despite having children there.

Brittonie Taylor (40), who served eight years in prison for a sexual offense, was ordered deported after he was released. However, 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.

Taylor was imprisoned for 16 years in 2012 after he pleaded guilty to a daylight serious 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 passer-by, the Royal Gazette reported.

The sentence was later reduced to 14 years by the Court of Appeal.

He also admitted to twice accosting a woman jogger in Hamilton Parish 35 minutes before the bus stop attack and was sentenced to another year in jail for intruding on her privacy.

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. However, he was arrested for breaching COVID-19 protocols a day before. He was to be deported in April, but he contested the deportation.

In an affidavit last year, Taylor said that he had a 23-year-old stepdaughter, 17-year-old twins, and a ten-year-old son with his Bermudian wife.

He said: “I have a close relationship with my children, particularly with my 17-year-old son.

“Since my release in October 2020, I had 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.”

At the close to the civil case, Ms. Greening asked that her client be allowed to “spend some meaningful time with his children” before he left the island.

However, the presiding judge said: “He has been here for quite some time, so I would imagine he would have used that time to have some time with his children.”