By PAVEL BAILEY
Tribune Staff Reporter
pbailey@tribunemedia.net
A MAN who sexually assaulted a 12-year-old girl he helped raise on the day of her primary school graduation has had his 15-year sentence cut to 13 years after the Court of Appeal found the sentencing judge wrongly held his lack of remorse against him and relied on allegations of earlier abuse that were never proven at trial.
Carlton Mott, 40, was convicted by an 8-1 jury verdict on May 2, 2025, of unlawful sexual intercourse with the 12-year-old daughter of his on-and-off girlfriend in an abandoned bushy area near the Port Lucaya Marketplace on June 25, 2021. He was acquitted of a second count of unlawful sexual intercourse.
Justice Petra Hanna-Adderley sentenced him on August 12, 2025.
Justices of Appeal Sir Ian Winder, Gregory Smith and Milton Evans refused Mott’s application for an extension of time to appeal his conviction, finding that none of his grounds challenging it were reasonable. However, they agreed that the trial judge erred by treating his absence of remorse as an aggravating factor.
They also found she had relied on claims about his past conduct that were not established at trial. In her sentencing remarks, Justice Hanna-Adderley said: “The evidence from the victim suggest that the Convict was touching the victim inappropriately from she was ten years old, but she only reported the matter when in 2023 when according to her she could not take any more of the (sic) sexual abuse.”
The defence argued that in this comment the court drew conclusions about Mott’s previous conduct that were not supported by the record. The appellate judges found there was no corroborating evidence that Mott had been touching the girl inappropriately since she was ten, and the prosecution ultimately conceded the error.
Having found that the trial judge wrongly treated certain matters as aggravating, the court said the sentence had to be reviewed to determine whether the same term would have been imposed without those errors. It ruled that a 13-year sentence was appropriate.
During the trial, the court heard that on the day of the offence, Mott had taken the girl and her siblings to the Play Room at the Marketplace to celebrate her drive-by primary school graduation.
The girl said Mott had made her uncomfortable earlier that day when he placed his hands on her vagina during a car ride alone with her.
Mott had been in a relationship with the girl’s mother since the girl was ten months old, helped raise her and fathered children with her mother. The girl said he had molested her and touched her inappropriately many times since she was ten. She came forward in 2023, after which her mother was charged with failing to report child abuse.
The girl said she suffers nightmares and sleepless nights as a result of the abuse, dreaming that Mott corners her and continues abusing her. She said she wanted to see him in handcuffs and in jail.
Her mother told the probation officer she felt she had failed her daughter when the abuse came to light. She said she had also been abused as a child. She reportedly attempted suicide as a result, but has since begun to mend her relationship with her daughter.
Probation officer Laish Boyd Jr said Mott showed no remorse while incarcerated and was not receptive to rehabilitation because he maintained his innocence.
Mott said he treated his partner’s other children as his own and was angered at the thought of being unable to provide for his children. He has 10 children, whom he worked to support until his incarceration.
At sentencing, Justice Hanna-Adderley found that Mott had violated the trust of a young child whom, in his own words, he treated as one of his own. She noted it was his first offence, but found it aggravating that he forced the girl to relive her trauma through a trial, and that her relationship with her siblings, his children, had become strained because of his imprisonment.
In his appeal, Mott had also argued that the trial judge wrongly told jurors the dates in the indictment were immaterial; conflated two separate incidents into a single count without telling jurors they had to be unanimous on which act constituted the offence; failed to tell jurors that a letter and evidence of the girl’s changed behaviour could not corroborate her account; gave no direction on an ambiguous answer the girl gave under cross-examination that was capable of amounting to a retraction; and gave no alibi or Lucas direction. He also claimed his lawyer was ineffective and that material inconsistencies were not adequately addressed. On sentence, he argued that his good character had been turned into an aggravating factor, that there was no structured sentencing and that his acquittal on the first count was not taken into account.
Mott will be enrolled in counselling while in prison and placed on the sex offender registry upon his release.
Janessa Murray prosecuted, while Stanley Rolle represented Mott.
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