A woman who held her 13-year-old daughter while her common-law husband raped her has been sentenced to two years' imprisonment for her role in the crime.

The 49-year-old mother of three wept in the dock shortly after she pleaded guilty to two counts of aiding and abetting indecent assault on the girl and one count of aiding and abetting rape.

In outlining the facts of the case, Joan Barnett, Crown counsel, said that on August 21 and 22 last year, the first two offences were committed. On August 23, last year, the mother held her daughter while her common-law husband raped her in the one-bedroom house where they lived.

The girl reported her ordeal to a neighbour who then reported the matter to the police. The mother and her common-law husband were arrested and charged, but he absconded while on bail.

Plea for leniency

Attorney-at-law Charles Williams, in his plea for leniency, said he knew the offences were serious but he was asking the court to be merciful. He said the woman's two young children were now at a place of safety and she would no longer have any control over them. He pointed out that her common-law husband, who led her to moral destruction, was not before the court because he had run away and a warrant had been issued for his arrest.

Justice Christine McDonald, in passing sentence in the Home Circuit Court yesterday, said she had no choice but to send the woman to prison. The judge said the woman demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt that she was not fit to be a mother.

The woman, who has three children ages 30, 13 and 10, admitted one previous conviction.

She pleaded guilty in the Family Court in Kingston last year to cruelty to her 13-year-old daughter and was sentenced in December to 12 months' imprisonment.