Rapist slapped with 20 years after setting fake taxi traps
Published:Saturday | July 22, 2023 | 12:06 AMLivern Barrett/Senior Gleaner Writer
A man who used a fake taxi to lure a woman into a sexual assault will have to serve almost 20 years in prison for his crime.
Dwayne Edwards was sentenced yesterday to 26 years and eight months in prison for rape, 10 years for robbery with aggravation, and eight years for forcible abduction.
Justice Leighton Pusey, who imposed the sentences, ordered that they should to be served concurrently and that Edwards must serve 18 years of his punishment for the rape conviction before he is eligible for parole.
Prosecutors Andrea Martin Swaby and Christine Porter had proposed a sentence of 27 years for rape, 13 years for robbery with aggravation and five years for forcible abduction.
In July 2021, Edwards was sentenced to a total of 88 and a half years in prison for similar offences that were committed months before the crimes for which he was sentenced on Friday.
Two of the sentences in the previous case, 19 and a half years for the offence of making use of a firearm to commit a felony and 19 years for grievous sexual assault, should be served consecutively
The others are to be served concurrently.
In the latest case, the female victim boarded a ‘taxi’ in downtown Kingston about 9:10 p.m. on September 20, 2017.
She sat in the front passenger seat while Edwards was seated in the back. Two other women who entered the car got out at the Bustamante Hospital, along Arthur Wint Drive, in St Andrew.
The driver of the car, Michael Swaby, is awaiting trial on sex-related charges.
The vehicle turned off the main road after it left the hospital gate, prosecutors said in court on March 9 this year when Edwards pleaded guilty to the charges.
Edwards slid over behind the victim, placed a knife to her throat and said, “Don’t move”. He directed the driver to recline the victim’s seat before telling her “just cooperate and yuh a go good”.
The woman claimed that both men took turns sexually assaulting her after she was robbed of cash and two mobile telephones.