A 45-year-old Sandys man has been jailed for three years after he admitted sexually touching two children.

Gladwin Daniels pleaded guilty earlier this year to six charges, including showing offensive material to a child, touching a child under the age of 16 for sexual purposes, inciting the child to touch him for sexual purposes and committing an indecent act in the presence of a child.

All of the offences took place on an unknown date between January 1, 2014, and July 17, 2016.

According to prosecutor Maria Sofianos, Daniels was arrested and charged after the children, who cannot be named for legal reasons, disclosed the abuse to a relative.

As the matter returned to Magistrates’ Court this morning for sentencing, Ms Sofianos proposed a sentence of between three and four years, followed by a period of probation.

However, defence council Alexandra Wheatley argued that a community sentence may be appropriate, noting that court-ordered reports found him to be at low risk of reoffending.

She told the court that Daniels had admitted the offence at the first opportunity, describing him as a “vulnerable person” who suffers from mental health and drug issues, suggesting that his abuse of drugs may have interfered with his medication.

Addressing the court himself, Daniels said: “I’m ashamed and embarrassed to be before the courts on this matter.”

However, after he declined the opportunity to say more, magistrate Khamisi Tokunbo responded: “Ashamed and embarrassed for yourself. I don’t hear you saying you are remorseful and sorry for these children.

“You may very well be a vulnerable person, but that doesn’t make up for what you have done.”

Mr Tokunbo described the offences as “grave”, adding that there was no proven correlation between his mental health issues or drug use and his actions, which need to be discouraged.

Given the circumstances, he sentenced Daniels to three years in prison for each offence concurrently, to be followed by two years of probation during which time he is recommended for any drug and sexual offender programmes available.

Mr Tokunbo further ordered that he is not to have any unsupervised contact with minor children.

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